Two Birds, Two Stones
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: Long-range communication devices are a tricky little thing. What would happen if the crew brought one onto Moya at the same time another passed through a Stargate to Cheyenne Mountain? Not so much body swapping as environment swapping. Established CrichtonxAeryn eventual CamxVala. Set Post-PKW and Post-AOT.
1. Swing Your Partners

_A/N: Hi all, this is my first Farscape and Stargate: SG-1 fanfic. I'd been binging both series, and I thought of the what-ifs and this happened. That being said, I'm really sorry if there's continuity errors between the story and the shows, I'm still new and may not have remembered every detail. A preemptive thank you to those who reviewed/alerted/favorited and of course read. I hope you enjoyed._

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 1

Swing Your Partners

He sneaks through the door, being chased by the first scream of the day, they start off as gurgles, then grow to whistles, then amplifies like a megaphone, loud enough to cause feedback. The sound chases his thumping boots through the hallway, as he stealthy escapes the jail cell which is his family's room which was originally a jail cell. It wasn't his turn. It was his turn, but he'll be damned if he's going to admit it. It's always his freaking turn and he does the doting husband/father thing, reaching over the edge of the bed he and Aeryn can barely fit on—been meaning to move another bed in because married couples haven't slept in separate rooms since Leave it to Beaver—and rocks the space bassinet. It's almost like a normal bassinet, but since they're in space it's a space bassinet, which just sounds cooler, because bassinets are not cool or manly or intimidating in any way, but a space bassinet sounds like it might be armed.

His space boots—same understanding—slide over Moya's clean, but vengefully echoing hallways and he feels the rubber treads on the soles pull and flick with the friction because he's trying so damn hard not to make a sound. Behind him the baby cries grow louder.

It wasn't his turn—it definitely was his turn.

Three tiers later and he swears he can still hear the baby crying, the sound wafting through Moya's internals and haunting him. He's probably being tracked. Aeryn—with Deke in her arms, balling his little fists and screaming, just screaming because other than poop, that's all he does. If he just keeps quiet he might have a chance—she's going to find him, probably pretty soon—but the quieter he is, the longer he has alone.

A large thunk echoes down the hallway from command, which should be empty during early morning sleeping time unless he's hiding in there trying to escape their banshee of a son. When there were more people living on Moya, it was a busier place. Bad thoughts and bad feelings. The emptiness by the command controls, and no one to ask for advice when their son hasn't gone to sleep for more than an hour.

Peeks around the corner to find Chiana stationary, feet unmoving but her body swerving like she's hula hooping, back hyperextending, and she purrs with pride. In them middle of the table there's a bulky object. It wasn't there three hours ago when he went to bed—when he went to hang off the side of his bed with his eyes wide open.

"You scanning that thing for bugs?" He doesn't know how her new eyes work, despite her telling him more than once. He's either been too tired from lack of sleep or too preoccupied from lack of sleep. He just wants a little sleep. He just wants to sleep alone for one night.

Half expects her to start at his voice, old Chiana would've, would've growled something about privacy and how it's only cool when she sneaks around. Would've Cheshire grinned at him and danced around him, only a little too close. She doesn't even turn back to him, doesn't even tense her shoulders. "Do you like it?"

"Well that depends." He slips in behind her, lowering his head and viewing the thing from just over her shoulder. "What the hell is it?"

Perches her hands on her hip, knocking his chin away form her shoulder, and half grins while studying it with approval. "Do you think Rygel will know the difference?"

"Again, that would depend on what the hell it is." He turns back to the doorway—can't linger in one place too long or Aeryn will smell blood on the wind—but in the dim light, his boot soccer kicks the table. It shudders and he stumbles before catching himself, less stealth now and more rodeo clown.

"Be careful." Chiana steadies the table and wipes a finger down the outside of the jar—is it a jar? it kind of looks like a vase. It's round, like a big jug or a planter for an indoor palm tree and it's plugged with a stopper made of faint blueish crystals.

"I'm sorry, did I upset that giant eyesore?" Huffs and touches the side of it, expecting cool clay underneath his fingers but instead finds a dull warmth like a water bottle, like his side of his family's makeshift, too small bed after he fear bolts from any sound close to crying. Crichtons don't cry. Responsibilities are vast, galaxy vast, wormhole possibility vast and the tributaries that squiggle away from his central life line, the two major life events immediate and simultaneous as a war raged—he kept running at the time but now he's got asthma and one hell of a charley horse.

"It's not an eyesore you greebol, it's a new hookah."

He drags a finger over avocado sized indents until his fingers stop over two zen stones plugged in. They're smooth and when he scratches at them, trying to pry them out with his nails he has no luck, it looks like a camp arts and craft project that no one finished.

"Awful generous of you to buy Rygel a new hookah, Pip."

"I broke the old one."

"Yeah, there it is," chuckles because he's kind of been raising kids for the last four and a half years. Don't break each other's crap, stop stealing ingots from the universal supply, crackers don't matter.

"It—it was an accident." Chiana swings around the table, popping out from behind the hookah that obviously isn't a hookah—no lines for smoke to come out, only rocks and crystals—picking her footsteps like someone pulled her over for a DUI. "I just—I've been having dreams about—well—I just needed something to take the edge off."

"Chiana." Her totter stops before him, and her head tilts to the side but her cat eyes cast to the floor. He's still not used to the eyes, still not used to a lot of things. The room only offers a few white highlights from distant stars outside and they play across her skin. Hasn't stopped to think about how she's handling it, been too busy mishandling everything to notice. He covers the leather-like material on her shoulder with his hand, and his pinkie taps at her ice-cold skin. He speaks close to her, profile to profile, as they always do, and it might be because somehow she reminds him a little of Liv. "That's what the old lady is for," he whispers and as she opens her mouth to question him, he leans away and shouts, "Hey Grandma."

A whimper and thump answer him from the doorway, not Noranti, not who he was expecting, but who he so quickly forgot about while starlight galaxy dancing around a not hookah.

"What the frell are you doing."

His lovely wife, dressed in one of his gray t-shirts and Calvin's underwear, stands with widened hips and angled legs to impede his stampede by her. Their son, their little man with his head resting on her shoulder revs his engine and screams right in her ear, skipping a breath every now and again when he runs out. It's so loud Moya may as well be tinged blue.

"Honey, I was just—"

"It's your turn to heed to his undying wails."

He flings his arms up, landing somewhere between Shakespearean and childish, and runs a hand over his night sweat clammy face because it's getting to the point that between recovering from creating a galaxy destroying wormhole and dealing with their son's conniptions every two arns, he's past full-blown insomniac. "It's always my turn."

"Because you always declare 'double or nothing'."

"Crichton," Chiana growls, her walk a dizzying arc, her hands cotton balling her ears to the various noises his family bleat. "Deal with your narl."

"Hey," shouts after her as she slinks by his wife and down a hallway, naturally disappearing into Moya's shadows. "Don't leave your trash on the table."

Aeryn advances from the doorway, lips pressing together in a perfect line of disappointment. She speaks in a low and steady, "You will take this child and you will not return to the room until he has settled."

"Honey—"

"If this was a full blooded Sebacean child, he would be sleeping through the night."

"Probably because the occurrence of shaken baby syndrome with peacekeeper night nurses is really high." Her reaction isn't what he hoped for, which is anything but the heavy-lidded glower she entered the room with. Since it became a necessity to be completely silent in the few precious moments while their son is asleep, they've been having more nonverbal fights, and he always loses those too. The grade school staring contest it reverts to throws him a loss because her composure is too good, her composure is scary as all hell and he think he'll always lose because he loves her a little bit more

Without a word, without straying from her eyes—hardened by hanging off the other side of the too small bed—he uncrosses his arms and waves for their wailing son. "I thought Peacekeepers only needed three hours of sleep a night."

"Your son—" her arms are cold as they brush against the tops of his, she shifts, black hair falling forward like a protective curtain and the tension in her muscles leaves when he cradles their son. "—makes me need more."

"Our son." He holds Deke the same way she does, head to shoulder. The little guy is always so warm, and it scares him. Babies and fevers. A half human baby in the depths of uncharted space with a space cold. The human and Sebacean parts of him fighting for dominance and cooling rods drilled into the soft spot on his little head.

He leans against the top of the table, careful not to drop the baby or the hookah and waits for Aeryn to leave so he and Deke can continue the dialogue they've been having since he was born. How Crichtons don't cry that much or for very long and Deke's newborn old man face turns red as he cries to spite him. Instead she balances beside him, her hand clasping the edge of the table, thumb touches his pinkie until he slides it away.

Aeryn sighs, because this is a battle they've been having for the last almost month. Responsibility. Does he have to change diapers? Does he have to do midnight feedings? The fact that Aeryn can't breastfeed and has never even heard of breastfeeding doesn't quiet help. Finding Sebacean baby chow in uncharted space is becoming more difficult—to find and explain—can't exactly go around and parade their ex-peacekeeper and human wormhole weapons product of love. It's a weird thing, love, he loves them both, but he's fed up with them both so quickly now, spent the first week of their son's life comatose and hasn't really picked up slack since then, and he wonders why and doesn't want to know the answer.

"Does this get easier, John?" Her voice now soft but identifiable over the weakening whimpers of their son, they all share the same weary face, the same skin brushed with gray sleeplessness and sudden rousing. She tucks her hands between her thighs and the Calvin's run up a bit on her pale legs. He's married to her, which is beautiful and all he's ever wanted while terrifying to no end. Where to go now, the edge of the universe, stare into the nothingness and welcome the madness. "If you tell me it gets easier, than it will be worth it."

Everything he's ever wanted is in his arms as he sits beside everything else he's ever wanted. The thing is it happened to fast. They were gone and then back and eight days later—double the gestation period for any regular Peacekeeper as Aeryn keeps pointing out—they had a baby in the middle of Custard's last freaking stand. He made a wormhole weapon and it was more exciting that anything happening right now. He was terrified but at least he was awake. "I don't know, Aeryn."

Her eyebrows crease and he figures she'll slide closer, place a hand on his knee and give him those red hot tinglies that ended up giving them a son. But she doesn't. Her hands clamp together and sit in her lap playing possum. Their eyes meet in the white highlights and hers shimmer with a layer of tears, her eyebrows slant to cut through the vulnerability. "John, if you don't—"

The not hookah on the table glows like her hands clapped it on, and Deke falls silent for the first time since yesterday. Tiny balled fists relaxing into openhand high fives. Steadies their son's heavy body on the table, propping him up with his hand and in the bask of the hookah's luminescence, he falls asleep.

"Well now, all he needed was a nightlight," he whispers, lips pulling into a grin, forgetting what he was just thinking, what Aeryn was about to ask him, chock one up to insomnia, boys. Despite the victory, a rueful grin still graces her face, half assed and barely meeting the corner of her mouth, she hasn't forgotten. "Aeryn, look, I—"

There's a rough metal clank as the two zen stones from earlier—buddah bribes or koi pond decos—tumble from where the last of the glue has finally space dissolved. The clack of stone to the metal tabletop and the immediate dispersal of the warm blue glow causes tiny baby eyes to blink back open. They're not his eyes but probably see better than twenty-twenty. Tiny hands roll into dictatorish fists that begin their mechanized rotations through the air. A red, toothless, gum filfed mouth opens wide and the wailing returns.

"What did you do?" Aeryn is on her feet collecting the zen stones flipping them around in her hand. "What did you do?"

"You were looking right at me? What did I do?" he shouts and grabs a stone from her hand, flipping it around until it looks like he thinks it did while stuck in the hookah. "Just put them back."

"How?"

"Do we have any glue?"

"What's glue?"

"How do you not know what glue is. You've been to Earth." He shifts his weight and get an earful of screaming right down his canal that gives him and instant headache and may actually tinge everything in blue. But it is better than getting thrown up on, he's always getting thrown up on now.

"Look," she halts him with a hand to his chest, his lips tucked into each other, his body bouncing Deke. She leans forward to place the stone in the same location. "Maybe they're magnetized."

"Yeah, sure, magnetic stones." He rolls his eyes and does the same and suddenly the white highlights devour them both.

* * *

He watches from the control deck as the Stargate bursts to life and collapses back in on itself. Two soldiers exit the blue gap. Walk side-by-side, each with an arm slung under a device, a familiar looking device and he wants to groan. Long-range communication device. Wishes Jackson came up with a better name. Something shorter. He hates this thing.

"Uh-uh, take it back."

Vala appears on the transport deck despite this being an after-hours mission with a very high security clearance. She crosses her arms at the mouth of the hallway and keeps her distance from the soldiers. Or probably the device. "We are not dealing with this thing again."

Fully groans now. Loud and unprofessional. Snatches his clipboard from the console and bounds down the stairs to intercept her false claim to any hierarchical power. She's part of the team. Sure. But she doesn't have a rank. She's almost the plucky sidekick.

"Vala, get out of their way." He startles her, and she jumps to the side, back flat against the high walls giving just enough room for the soldiers to continue their trek.

Intercepts just as she reaches to call them back. Her hailing hand smacks against his chest and when she sidesteps him, he follows. She shoves at his shoulder, but the force barely sways him. "Are you really allowing them to just bring this thing back.?"

"It's not the same one—"

"It doesn't matter, they're all dangerous."

"It's not nearly as dangerous as—"

"Yes, of course, I forgot it wasn't you who was burned alive." Her body twists away and she paces in a wide circle, stopping before him to raise two fingers. "Twice."

"No, I'm just one of the lucky people who get to hear the very specific details of the story when you retell it every other day." He immediately regrets his words. Can't imagine the emotions she went through, the immense pain, all the underlying trauma that's still probably present. Hell, he still has nightmares about a certain plane crash. "Look, the device is missing the stones, so there is no way we can interact with people galaxies away. It's spending the night at the base and heading to area 51 tomorrow morning."

Turns on his heel, leaving the newly waxed floor scuffless, and rounds the corner in not quite a march but a fast gait. Paperwork for the device needs to be finished by 0600, along with the transit slip and all the customs reports. If he starts now he should have enough time to go for a quick jog before—

"This is an omen, you know."

He groans again. Louder. A clipboard and a textbook worth of paper hiding his face from her skipping along beside him. The serious bristled faces of recruits and seasoned veterans watch her pigtails bounce with each jaunty step. Sometimes their nostrils flare or a sneer washes over their lips, sometimes he does it too. "Vala, I promise you nothing is an omen."

"A device missing the stones seems like an obvious set up."

Has a strong gait now, not the jog he wants, but she starts to straggle and maybe he can lose her in the late-night snack rush and lock her out of the lab. It'll never happen. She'll end up sitting in there with him, all because of Jackson.

She squeezes between two recruits both taller and wider than him and utters, "oop, excuse me gentlemen."

"Are you suggesting the immobile device with no energy reading is going to radiate and explode."

"No, I'm suggesting that someone might have intentionally removed the stones in order to cause us harm." She is valuable in that no one else on SG-1 has her skillset. Every few months she'll have a really good idea. A life saving idea. A revelation usually counteracted by an immediate bad idea erasing the good. A Supergate sacrifice for an Ori immaculate conception. He's been trying to hear her out more and more, but her naivety and playful attitude can wear thin in times of panic, in times of open fire and duck and dodge.

So, he fakes her out around the next corner, turns down a hallway and then doubles back. It reminds him of playing tag in the cornfields growing up. Dusty earth and a hot sun ringing over him until his mom called him for lemonade. It makes him smile. She scrambles in front of him, walking backwards and still speaking. He leaves his smile on too long, she notices and copies it with a genuine grin of her own.

He blinks his way back to Cheyenne Mountain, the twisting narrow pathways, and the retreating woman in front of him paying no attention to her footfalls. Jackson's method of dodging and ignoring isn't working anymore. "Who wants to hurt us?"

"Who doesn't want to hurt us?" Her foot catches in a raise in the tiles and her expression falls blank as she slips backwards. Automatically, his arms shoot out, hands clamping down onto her shoulders, reeling her backwards and releasing her away from the stairs. Her pigtails bounce the entire time and she grins, not paying any attention to the near tumble down a flight of twenty metal stairs.

"Vala, look." She grins wider at him and he purses his lips and taps his clipboard. "I have to transfer the device first thing in the morning. It's not going to do anything when it's here. It's inactive, they found it in a garbage dump on some abandoned planet."

"Then why doesn't Daniel have a look at it?"

"You know Jackson has that conference." Jackson spent the better part of a week writing up speeches and slideshow presentations on the dangers of the Ori and how monitoring stargate traffic can essentially cut down on planetary threats. He would have winged it the night before. Glued some pictures on poster board and be in bed after a nice jog. But education isn't the call for the conference, funding is. "If he can convince them to give us a little more funding, the Stargate will be better monitored, and these long-range communication devices will stop popping up."

"So. we aren't even—"

"We aren't doing anything, it's a simple tag and transfer." His stern walk takes him through the outer lab where he nods at the officer guarding the experimentation room. He inputs the code at the door and feels her shadowing him still.

The door whooshes open and a sterile smell curls it's way into his lungs, not like antiseptic or any distinguishable smell, just the lack of one. No smells at all. The white room gleams under the strength of several lights and he blinks to rid himself of the snow blindness.

Her combat boots echo behind him. Clicking to his clunks, creating a shared melody between them. "Well that's good, because I'm not going."

"Great." He stops at the device, the blue crystal atop of it hazy and dull, brown lines of dirt and debris working their way through the crags on the outside. The metal body is tarnished with age and the once awkward scent of nothing is replaced with the lingering odour of a secondary planet's dump. He glances over his shoulder and she's dark green and black popping in an all white room. "Wait, going where?"

"To search for the stones."

"No one is going to search for the stones."

"Well not now."

This is one of those times where he's going to ignore her. He has a mission, get object A from location A to location B by 0600. She doesn't have a mission. She has loneliness. He locks the device in place rendering it unworkable. There's a high-pitched squeak and then the low hum of an emp field encircling and blocking all transmissions. "There, you can sleep safe."

"I don't want to sleep."

"There's a surprise." Checks his watch. Almost 0030. A jog is out of the question, but he can still get a decent amount of sleep if he uses his base bunk, but that's on the other side of the complex. Maybe he can just sleep in his office. He brushes by her and feels his movement pull her with him.

"It's just that—" She trails after him through the corridor. The click of her boots more frequently tempoed like the metronome on the old piano his grandma made him practice on. "Well all of you get to go home, to a different home, outside here, and I'm—" She breathes in deeply. Faltering then regaining, then falling back again. Never once does she ask him to slow down and talk to her face-to-face. He would never pull this with Sam, or Teal'c. He might try to dodge Jackson for fun, but after his evasiveness became apparent, he would slow, and they would have the conversation. Half of his conversations with Vala he never sees her face, her reaction, or is even facing her. It bothers him because he doesn't know what this means. Disrespect, or him picking up on her playfulness, or does she just assume this is how half of their conversations will go now, with her chasing him, because he's done it for so long it seems ordinary.

"So, you understand then?"

He hasn't been listening because he's two feet in front of her and her voice has sunken between army boots and drive-by dialogues. It's disrespectful and he feels a little guilty because she does get those valiant life-saving ideas and for a brief amount of time she is a hero. He turns and she's almost slams into him.

"Sure?"

"Oh excellent." She claps and beams and for a moment it's endearing before he remembers how dangerous her excitement can be. "So where shall we look first?"

"For what?"

"For the stones."

"Vala, we are not going searching for the stones."

"But it's been a week since I've left this building and I'm starting to go mad. Since Daniel and Samantha are preoccupied it would be a great way to pass the time."

"Look, I'm sorry that down time bores you, and that you're confined to command when you don't have the proper supervision." His hands swing a bit as he spins around her and continues towards his office. His empty hands. "We don't need the stones, the paperwork for the transfer—" is on the desk beside the device, miles away from his office where he can catch a quick sleep.

"Dammit." Pivots again on his heel and switches directions back towards the lab. Maybe she doesn't question their tag conversations because he's always backtracking. "Look, the stones won't—" but she's not tracking him anymore. He lost her or she gave up and went back to her dorm or the kitchen as part of the late-night snack crowd.

Guilty but not guilty. Maybe he should talk to Jackson about this. Anything caged long enough is bound to go a little stir crazy, like the fireflies he'd collect in jars and his grandma would benevolently release. Giving Vala duties or training when they're grounded for more than a few days could be beneficial. She could take advanced combat courses, learn to fight in different ways instead of depending on luck and surpr—

"Would you rather someone else get a hold of the stones and use them to transfer right into our bodies?"

"Jesus, Vala." She pops out before the lab door, and follows as he walks the same route by objects of interest and chemistry sets he wouldn't know how to use even after hours of training. Maybe they should all be cross trained a bit. She sighs loud enough behind him to draw his attention. "Our bodies are fine, Vala."

"That's easy for you to say, you've never had to experience it."

"So what?" Types in the password on the touch pad again and it sparks up as red until the buttons reset. "You want to go out and find all fifteen stones?"

"No, only the two that work in our device."

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Enters the code again and it flashes as red. The guard next to the door gives him the eye and he twitches his lips into an awkward smile.

"Well that planet's dump would be a good place to start."

Presses enter and the pad lights up green. The door whooshes open and the familiar unfamiliar stench of nothing greets him again. Everything in the room still shines. The clipboard stands almost black stroke outlined on the metallic table. "Well, that's not going to work because this isn't our device."

"Not our." She flicks her hand between them, then widens and twists to gesture to the whole complex. "Our."

"It's neither. It belongs to Area 51 where it will go and stay and be deactivated." He completes the final signature on the triplicate form. Beside him the air smells almost burnt, it's unusual but the mission log did state the device was found under at least ten years of trash. Maybe the stench of a dump fire lingered.

"Well then when we get thrust into other people's bodies it will be entirely your fault."

In his peripherals he watches her raise an eyebrow and set her jaw in challenge, which doesn't mean anything because she's the sidekick. The one who takes people down by tripping them or names an ancient dragon Daryl.

"Vala." She's closer to him now and he inadvertently tries to take a step back but knocks the table and his clipboard. The hum of the emp field increases behind him. In the extreme light of the room her blue eyes vibrate. She is hopeful, but also scheming. Half of him, the half that won't meet her eyes when they talk, still doesn't trust her. "I will never be leaving the comfort of my own body, okay?"

The emp field increases in rate again and the hairs on his arms begin to stand on end, her pigtails frizz up and there's a small crackle of static. The sullen crystal in the middle of the device bursts to life.

"Aw shi—"

And a white light encompasses the room.


	2. Behind You

_A/N: Thanks to everyone who read/favorited/alerted. I'm glad you hopefully found some aspect of the story entertaining._

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 2

Behind You

She's immediately aware something is different. First the air, not as clear and constant as on Moya. Thicker, stewish, and heavy with humidity lapping her face. The temperature is a few klances higher, not dangerously so, tolerable, but not ideal. Her vision clears away to offer up an incandescent room contradictory to Moya's dark and welcoming interior. The intensity dries her eyes and adds a ring of blindness to her peripherals.

One hand fixes to a table, not as weighty as the command table but sturdier, cooler to the touch. Employs her auxiliary senses to create an area map in her brain. Table to the left and a table in front with that frelling device on it—a beacon? From who? A lot like shifting bodies, she has her hands though, still wears Calvin's, white reflecting the light. White like a Peacekeeper medical unit, but she was in command and that glowing blue crystal, John and Deke—

"John." Uprights herself, eyelids gradual in opening, adapting to an overflow of white. Steps forward and something clatters to the ground, startling her to a stop. The second call is throatier, more desperate, "John."

Objects stabilize in her sight, a metallic table, some papers on the ground. That thing blinking blueness slowly to the tune of a high-pitched hum before faltering out. A dark blur constructs itself beside her, grows until he's on his feet, hand rubbing at the back of his head. "I'm okay, Honey."

Vision healing, she traces his hand to his neck blanketing it with hers, allows him leech some of her remaining coolness. He retrieves her hand and brings the palm to his mouth. "Are you okay."

Plays her free fingertips over the hair behind his ear. "Yes, I'm adjusting to the light." Doesn't mention the temperature which is not presently an issue.

"Why is it so bright in here?" Squints as he examines the room in a weak circle, his nose pulls as he inhales in deep snorts of the air, she doesn't know what he's doing, but it certainly isn't analyzing the humidity. "Why does it smell like a hospital?"

"Deke." Grabs the table and pushes it away from the wall, but there aren't even dust motes behind it. Pushes John out of the way into the space she just created and rocks the device on the table in search.

"Aeryn, we had him inoculated. Remember how much the damn Diagnosian cost?"

"You fekkik." Shoves him so he stumbles back against the wall. Not as hard as she could, they both know it.

"Hey."

"Where is my frelling son?"

"Our son is—" anger floods from his face and it relaxes, then immediately tenses. "Oh shit."

"Where is he?" Scrambles around the small chamber, reinforced walls around three quadrants and a panel for viewing behind them. No sign of her son. She leaned against the table beside John, and he pulled away his hand, they spoke briefly but the baby quieted, enthralled by the glow.

John lands beside her on his hands and knees, cheek planted to the ground to better scan with his deficient eyes among many other deficient factions of his body. "Maybe he didn't get transported with us."

Bursts to her feet, allowing another spin to take in the chamber again. The pulse of the device continues in pace and in pitch still matched by the blinking crystals. "Pilot? Chiana? Can anyone hear—"

"Hey." Again reassembles beside her, more composed, more still. How can he be so frelling lax? His hands find her shoulders and rub, the friction only serving to increase her core temperature. "Calm down."

"Do not tell me to calm down like I'm some frelling hysteric."

"It's okay."

Flips her entire body so their faces almost touch, he smells of adrenaline and the odor of sweat. He doesn't blink, instead holds her nonverbal spar. "Do. Not. Placate. Me."

"Okay." His lips purse to hold in words he wants to discharge but concedes to her. Presses his back to the wall, wrinkling his black shirt and keeps his arms raised in surrender. "You do your thing, Baby."

Can't be still. Can't stand—legs pump and she tucks her face into fidgeting fingers. Her son is helpless, undeveloped body and brain incapable of defending himself. Created from love—perhaps lust or the need to lower fluid levels before the incarnation of love, but eventual love, and he does not deserve to be abandoned by both parents as she was.

"Pilot? Pip? Grandma? Anyone?" Back flush against the wall, he coms for those who might answer, irises tracing her marching movements. Tries for a full micron or two for contact before sighing, then catches her hand mid stride and she spins to him with a set jaw and a clenched fist. He only holds her hand, thumb ringing over the back, and drops his head.

"Are you two okay?" A woman enters the room before either of them notice, she's dressed what looks like military fatigues with flipping blonde hair and sparkling eyes. She also has a board like the one toppled to the floor. She waits at inattention for them to answer her question, and when neither of them speaks, she shifts her head with elaborations. "Monitoring room recorded a flash from the device and—why are you guys dressed like that?"

She bends her knees, fingers filtering over the fallen board on the ground and without hesitation fires it through the air to hit the woman in the face. Distracted, the woman teeters back, allowing full access to her pulse pistol easily snatched from a holster on her upper thigh. It's not a pulse pistol, but a gun of some sort, the schematics of most are easy enough to follow. Behind her, John constricts in surprise or perhaps disagreement. His hands still halfway in the air.

"Where is my child?"

"Aeryn maybe we should—"

The woman touches the small incision on her temple and lets out a hiss, which is ridiculous as it's hardly bleeding. "Vala, what—"

"Where is my frelling son."

"Our son, Honey," John slips by her, heat waves following his course to mediate between her and the woman. "Our son."

"I will ask you once more, and then I will shoot."

"Vala." The woman's hand falls from her eye as she straightens her stance. "you don't have a son."

"Look we just showed up here. Her name's not—" John's body sparks forward, hand clamping down on the woman's bicep terrifying her. "Are you speaking English?"

"Umm, yes?" she clarifies with a nervous smile pulling the ends of her lips wide.

"Aeryn lower your weapon."

"John—"

"She's speaking English. We're on Earth."

Exhaustion complete in her being. The wakeful arns spent at night fixing her body rigid as to not fall off the shared bed only to be constantly disturbed by the wails of her son whom she cannot satiate. Who is never content. Chasing after John, somnambulant down lightless and abandoned Moya corridors, so he will hold and care for the baby who slips like liquid between his fingers. "Deke."

"Aeryn." Sounds like a chide, however she will not include it as a chide as then she would have to shoot him, should over his shoulder, a warning shot because someone has to put Deke's needs first, the emotional turmoil of missing parents, of a missing child and she bites the inside of her mouth to keep from evacuating in tears and a rant which will turn physical.

"I don't think we want to shoot her if she can help." He shifts back to her, chin on her shoulder, nose pressing her cheek, his voice a teetering whisper, words smoking into her ear. Hands singe on her biceps, coercing her into lowering the gun, and she hesitates because her son sometimes stares up at her with her eyes and she doesn't know what to do because they're so despondent. More pressure exerts on her arm and she shakes to keep stationary, but breaks under his control, directing the gun away from the woman's head. They all heave in at a rate increasing the humidity, a sliver increase in temperature and she cocks an eyebrow at this realization and slows her breathes.

"You're not Colonel Mitchell then?"

"No."

"Then why did you take over his body?"

"Hey, I didn't hijack anything." Floats his hands over his sweatpants, and his t-shirt stained with baby vomit down the back. Burped wrong and immediately returned to her, the disapproving mewls of an infant still wrapped in a war stained blanket. "This is my body. If you don't believe me, ask her."

"You're not Vala?" The attention falls to her and it shouldn't. An improperly sized bed to fit a family. Sometimes when he flees, she retrieves her son and holds to her chest allowing him to cry until his throat dries. Pats his stiff back and speaks to him in Sebacean.

"Lady, she isn't even human."

The viewing portal behind her flashes open allowing a rotund man, dressed in an Earth military uniform, entrance to their stand off. He is accompanied by two soldiers, both of whom are armed with rifles, not pistols. His face is weary because it must be the middle of their sleep cycle, glassy eyes loop the room. Squints when analyzing John and herself. Perhaps as the woman mentioned earlier, their attire is inappropriate for their environment. Halts at the woman, and her hand shifts from her body to warn him not to cross into their territory. He addresses her curtly, "Colonel Carter, what is going on."

"Sir, this is not Vala or Cam."

"What do you mean." His voice is the gravelly equivalent of dragging a hand over his face.

"The device briefly flashed which set off radiation peaks in the lab. I came to—"

"Whoa, radiation? I don't have a good record with radiation. Tell 'em, Baby." John withdraws from the new humans, back turned, pistol swinging in his hand with his momentum, the military man takes notice, his eyebrow twitching into an almost full arch and the woman nods her head.

Wants to remind him over his childlike glee from returning to Earth that the baby is still missing, lay her forehead against the square of his shoulder in lethargy and repeat that he has a child they should be caring for and not grind her teeth when he responds with a guttural groan. Then the hollow sound of impact as the side of her forearm slams into the side of his head. The swirls of emotions, of worry and rage, boiling within her and her failure to ward sentiment from her speech and expression. Her turmoil palpable and manipulating in her words, "Where is my child."

"Aeryn he's our son." Frustration in his constant reminder to share their offspring. Frustration in her constant reminder that it is his offspring despite earlier doubts. Earth television programs from their last landing, Chiana and herself graduating from children's entertainment to soap operas or as John dubbed them 'a lonely housewife's daily entertainment'. Sitting on pliable pieces of furniture while eating foods full of sugar, fat, and salt, and becoming completely absorbed into someone else's life. It's her life now. Her life.

At her stoic expression, one he can now translate, his voice softens as to alleviate the blame, "and he's not here."

"How do you know this, Crichton?" John is a pet name akin to all the hypocoristics he tosses into their dialogue to appease her but only work to soothe him with familiar Earth idiosyncrasies. "You woke after I did, and I could not see."

"I can only imagine what it must feel like to lose a child." The woman, Colonel Carter, stretches her hand forward across the one table strewn aside in her earlier panic. Her voice continues steady giving her words underlying sincerity, "We can try to help you find him, if you'll work with us."

"We didn't misplace him, we were transported here."

"I was holding him." Head down in admittance. The weapon hangs at his side and she's not confused or surprised by his breeching loyalty. Their love so concrete then quickly buried in a recovery period. Supine on that bed for an entire week and for an entire week she tried to rouse him. Spoke with him equally in his comatose state, held entire two-sided conversations until the pressure of being a mother, the pressure of being a good partner ground her down. "Is there anyway to see if he came through with us?"

"We do have recordings of the room and we'll gladly show you."

"But?"

"But afterward we'd like your help in figuring out why you came here and where our people are."

"Great, see, Honey, they're—" Captured with his arm over her shoulders, heavy and warm, heavy and warm and difficult to maneuver. Muscles harden against his lax arm. Lax until it hovers away. "Not placating. I'm not."

The unanimous motion to disperse is halted by the military man who remains locked in place as a hurdle before the exit. "You also need to return that gun to Colonel Carter."

"I don't see that happening anytime soon."

An argument breaks out as suspected. Safety versus customs. Impolite to be walking around a military base carrying a Lieutenant Colonel's holster pistol. Unsure and unwelcoming, with half slotted eyes all directed at her because she's stopped talking because standing is exercise, this chamber is infuriating, her partner vacillates between giddiness of Earth and parental duties. She grows wistful for an arn ago when she sensed him fumbling away, Deke's cries amplified, and she cradled him, her hand over his back feeling the tick of each heartbeat.

They no longer acquire the gun, in the halos of blur still present after mass blinks, John hands the gun, barrel down, back to Colonel Carter. They are now unarmed on a military base, and the remembrance of memories not her own but acted by her; their sedation, Rygel's evisceration, D'Argo's transfer, and the sound of rain against glass as blankets became too heavy with sweat. She is starting to sweat.

"Good, follow me and I'll take you to the security room."

The doors open with a gust of synthetic air, dry and heavy on her face and Colonel Carter leads them into the adjacent room with large tables covered in items like a bizarre or trading post. They weave through aisles, and John's fingers twitch with the need to disrupt.

"Hey, are we you're first aliens?" Questions over his shoulder, his voice muffled by his shirt.

The General clears his throat behind her and Colonel Carter sends a brief glance over her shoulder. "I was under the impression that you were human."

"I am, but I don't think this is the same—" The tirade on multiple dimensions continues and he asks basic questions about his Earth to rule out similarities.

She, however, remains wary. People—Human, Sebacean—of any species are hardly altruistic without personal gain. The soldiers remain at the entrance to the monitoring room, a gallery overlooking the various areas for experimentation. Their chamber holds the device they placed the rocks in, another holds what looks like an ancient chest made of stone, and the third is empty and being cleaned by two men in white suits, the same who abducted her in not her memories.

Colonel Carter leans over a chair and drags a piece of hardware attached to a small screen. Icons and pictures blink through until a film of the device chamber begins. There is no color, and no sound and this system is more outdated than the television she learned the alphabet from. White symbols scroll by in the corner, but the picture remains stagnant. Then the screen flashes white, and she and John fall from the ceiling. She lands on one knee with the other bent, her hand shading her eyes. John lands face down into solid flooring.

"No baby makes three," John mutters as Colonel Carter drags the hardware around once more and restarts the film. Only they fall from the ceiling.

"No baby." The words are empty and mimicked only so she can gain meaning from them. Her son is on Moya, which is not as reassuring to her as John. His hand reaches back from where he leans over the console, his face close to the small screen, and she allows him to grip hers and pull her closer. In silence her head falls to his shoulder for comfort, for the miniscule amount of safety he provides.

The symbols at the bottom of the screen scroll and reroll as the movie plays again and John places a finger to them. "Wait, is it 2009?"

"Yes."

"We're in the future, Babe. Do we have flying cars—"

The sound alerts her too late, and a current of electricity flows through her, dragging into her unconsciousness.

* * *

One of those horrid devices sits beeping on an immense table that is doing nothing to work with the design of the room. A spacious window lays just beyond showcasing a vast expanse of, well, space. No planets she can distinguish but plenty of stars, white shiny bobbles floating around in liquid black nothingness, enticing because she's never been this close. Is it dangerous to be this close?

"Do not touch that." Cameron's up. He slaps a hand to the ground and then another until he pulls himself onto his hands and knees like some barnyard animal, probably a well associated one that he grew up with. Upon their transport here, he was knocked immediately unconscious, she never lost consciousness, simply picked up where she left off.

After swiping some interdimensional dust from her slacks, she tried to stir him, shook his broad shoulders and may have given him a quick slap. When his eyes didn't flutter she checked his pulse and turned him—rather, kicked him—into a more comfortable position from where he was face down on the floor. He was entirely unconscious making his thick body difficult to manipulate.

She then took in the room, several consoles with letters in a dialect she has never seen, at least not in any of Daniel's books. A camera would come in handy now, not just to feed Daniel's linguistic addiction but also to snap shots of Cameron in funny poses as he slept. It would need a flash because the room is terribly dark and identifying that the unknown symbols were unknown was a great victory. Other than consoles that prove useless, a table with the device and a large window she's found nothing of interest. No weapons, and nothing to divulge details of where they are.

"I didn't do anything," clarifies to him and proffers a hand, however, his head still faces the floor, so she pokes her pinkie in his ear once and then twice before he slaps her hand from the air like an unwanted insect.

"Where are we?" Spoken to the gritty tile, his head hanging like he's doing a yogurt position. Head hanging hog or some other nonsense. Samantha invited her to a class under the ruse that the stances increased flexibility which is a good trait to have in and out of the bedroom, but it turned out to just be exercise.

"I warned that the device was dangerous."

"I know."

"I warned you it was dangerous while it was transporting us."

"Are you going to keep saying 'I told you so' or are you going to do something to actually help." He slobbers down his chin and onto the ground with his sentence. Not surprising or detesting, they've all had bad reactions to stimuli or atmospheric variances. One jump raised Muscles' voice by at least seven octaves, another caused Daniel to urinate so frequently they had to cancel and reschedule, she still thinks it was a sexually transmitted disease.

"I never said those words." Steps in front of him and offers up the same hand careful not to douse it in the waterfall at his mouth. Tilts his chin to check his eyes, unsure of search parameters, but finds them still a bit wonko, floaty and bobbled like the stars out their front window.

"Vala—" grunts as he retrieves her hand from his face and borrows some of her keen balance to stand. "Wait a minute, you're you."

"Good perception, at least your eyes work." Glances down at the clothes they enforced on her after the first few days. Pilfered her leather outfits while she recovered in a hospital bed. When she was cleared to exit the medical bay, Daniel approached her with a pile of clothes that turned out to be four black shirts in various cuts, two pairs of army slacks that are still too big for her, and a curious white plastic bag tied shut tightly.

" _While I always appreciate a good love token, I came with my own clothes, Darling."_

" _You might be more comfortable in these."_

" _Aesthetic is not about comfort."_

" _We'd be more comfortable if you wore these." He then pushed the clothing into her arms with a final huff._

" _What's this?" Opened the bag, while he stammered not to open it in his presence, to find it full of undergarments. Nude colored and plain white cotton_. " _Oh Daniel, your tastes are so pedestrian."_

" _Sam picked those up for you," he yelled on his way out the door, the back of his neck growing red._

"No Vala," he grunts. He and Daniel do a lot of grunting and groaning and excreting heavy blows of hot air from their nostrils and mouths. They are the loudest breathers she's ever known. "That means we didn't take over anyone else's bodies."

"No, of course not, we merely switched environments." Twirls around him a bit, feet in combat boots, which were also issued to her, clip clopping over the uneven flooring. He pauses movement, standing with a bit of an open mouth taking in the room. A device and a window and some new gibberish. After it becomes quite clear his rebuttal doesn't exist she continues, "which means that there's likely someone back at Cheyenne Mountain in our place."

Crosses his arms over his chest either guarding himself, or from being short with her. However, he's wearing that magnetic grin, the one that she knows bring an adventure. "How are you so calm with all of this?"

"This is my third ride, Darling."

"So you've mentioned."

"I've been investigating the whole time you've been taking a lovely cat nap."

"Alright Dick Tracy, what'd you learn?" Leans against he table which immediately wobbles underneath his weight.

"Well for one, I wouldn't lean against that table, it's made from something organic and is terribly unsturdy."

Arms crossed again but he removes his smile and accompanies it with a step forward. "Where are we, Vala?"

"We're obviously on a ship." She flashes a grin hoping to appease his sudden bad attitude. Surely, he cannot blame her for this situation. She verbally alerted him several times to the dangers the device accrues. When the smile doesn't work, when he still advances, she takes a step in retreat.

He steps. "Okay, in what galaxy?

"I don't know." She retreats.

"What make of ship?" He steps.

She retreats. "I don't know." Her back now pressed to the wall next to the bowed window with an opposite view of the room, and she notices it. Laying unmoving on the other side of that dreadful table, hidden from view behind the device.

She's so distracted that she doesn't realize how close he's gotten to her, pinned her a bit against the wall. No bad memories with Cameron—alright a few—what she aptly named the Merlin speech still frightens her, the intensity and he refusal to allow her escape, shook her until she fell into place and she felt alone. Not just then, but in her dorm that night while everyone returned off base to their homes. And every night since. Wakes from memories, nightmares, and tries to stick onto whomever she can find.

He growls, "Do you know anything that can actually help?"

Before she can answer, the infant answers for her, clicking on like a clock radio and screaming murder. Swathed tightly in a stained brown blanket that exposes only a tiny red face. She raises her eyebrow at Cameron's complete lack of expression, he's too shocked to look shocked. "I know what that is"

He smacks his lips at her, and she grins widely before he turns towards the infant. "Hey little guy, what are you doing here?"

"Awfully macho of you to assume it's a boy." She stalks the other way as Cameron, unheeding of her warning, leans back against the loose table, taking the child in his arms. The face has the distinct quality of being human, creases for eyes, and a nose, and lips. Just a face full of grouchy creases. It gurgles, its throat caught on air from incessant wailing. "He looks human."

"He does, doesn't he." Cameron folds back the top of the blanket, and little fingers find their way into a gummy mouth as she tiptoes up beside to garner a closer look. His eyes dart to meet hers and then back to the baby. Then he laughs, heartily laughs and it may be more surprising than finding a human infant onboard the darkest ship in the galaxy.

She laughs back, more of a mocking snicker and then pats his shoulder as she retreats again. "Well put it back."

"What?"

"Put it back where you found it."

"Why"

"Because that is not your child," truly laughs now at the twist of the situation and the knowledge that SG-1's fearless leader melts at the sight of a squalling infant. "Cameron, you found it on the table, it's just some random baby."

Jumps to his feet as the table teeters but doesn't topple over yet, still holding the child, his arm raised a few inches higher as if to protect it from her harsh words. He glances left, then right. "Where do you want me to put the kid? There's no crib or bassinet."

Calmly, she approaches again. The cat and mouse game, the tag they play. Him running away from her down the snaking corridors of the complex, her scrambling up and over partitions and jumping half level stairs to beat him to his destination. "It was on the table; its parents will retrieve it from the table."

"We could go find his parents."

"That's not our job, our job is to get home."

"I'm not leaving this kid on a random table."

"Why not? It is a random baby."

"This table isn't steady, something else you've also said a thousand times." He quakes the table and the device dances, her breath gets caught somewhere between her lungs and nose. "He could roll off."

The baby fusses, hands and feet now broken free from the confines of a very stained blanket, which doesn't make sense and usually she's in favor of the nonsensical as it brightens up a slow work week, but there is no way she's slogging along some random baby on their quest to get home. "Its immobile, Cameron. Its not just going to be rolling about. It can barely support its own head."

"Why don't you care? You had one of these didn't you?" The inflection in his voice hurts more than his actual candor, the insinuation that she ever got to be a mother instead of an incubator, instead of a trojan horse for troops to simply spill out of.

Pulls a strong face because her eyes feel very dry, then very wet. Doesn't want to think of when the Ori yanked Adria out of her and stole her away. The baby that kept her up each night with tortuous heartburn and violent nightmares. Burning ceilings and walls and skin. Her skin. "Yes. Briefly. And when they took her from me I became awfully upset, so let's not upset the parents because they might not be as nice as I am."

"Okay. Okay." Calms her with a halting hand, the end of her rant the end to his judgements. The baby stirs more frequently now, and Cameron bounces on his knees as if a song is playing that she can't hear. "Let's just try to figure out where we are and why we're here."

"We're on a ship and we're here because of the device." Remove the baby and place it on the table and it is no longer their problem. It isn't their problem. They have no biological ties to this child and if her own daughter is fine to be whisked away, then certainly this infant is fine to spend the next little while clumped on the table. "Did you hit your head when you fell? Gravity was not your friend."

"Just—let's think." Paces as he speaks, adding in a jaunty little bounce every now and then, keeps the baby quiet briefly, but even its patience is growing thin. "There has to be a reason we were specifically transported here. Last time you and Jackson went to the Ori galaxy and we learned about their motives before they became a threat to our galaxy. So maybe here—"

His shadow drifts across the device, highlighting certain aspects in the lowlight. This is their device, the one from the complex. Has the same dirty crystals, the same tarnished metal and still smells like trash. "Perhaps the others, the ones who took our place, were just playing with the stones."

"What."

"Unaware of what could happen." The device is devoid of stones, of tokens back to their reality where she doesn't have much but a little more than four shirts, two pairs of pants, and a notorious white plastic bag.

"Maybe we're here to learn about something that's going to attack us." As usual he ignores her explanation, his mind still caught in the gears of the idea that this is an educational not accidental excursion when it may be nothing more than two people who noticed two stones fit two holes.

Can't help but arch another eyebrow at the drastic change in form when an infant, a screaming little potato who may possibly need a diaper change, is part of the equation. Tau'ri men take pride in their lineage, at least that's what she's garnered from books and programs she's been exposed to. The majority of Tau'ri men take interest in and protect their offspring, which is quite unusual for the other planets she's visited. "Maybe they'll make us rear their children."

"Well that would be your specialty."

There is the missing rebuke from before. Biting wit with a snicker as he fixes the child's blanket while saying such malicious words. She can't say anything because it's unsurprising, but it doesn't hurt any less. Friends—family, a team she's bonded with and has inclinations she's become an asset to, all too loose with their tongues. She shakes her head at him, disappointed, and marches towards the only exit from the room.

Hears his footsteps clonk after her but she doesn't stop her stride. Desperately misses her empty bed and falling asleep to celebrity reality shows around this time. "Oh don't act like you don't—"

The door opens awkwardly, not from the top or sides, but spins like a gold coin between two fingers. The air is a bit stale, smelling vaguely of rust, metal and a little like raw meat. The connecting corridor is not any brighter than the room, but she can not even wager a stumble down unknown pathways because someone stands in her way. A young woman, with shining gray skin and cat eyes.

"Oh-kay." With his free hand he grabs the collar of her shirt and drags her back while tucking the child closer to him. They hit the device table again, and her collar is stretched behind repair, lolling off her left shoulder. "Hey we—uh—we—really don't know what's happening here, but we don't mean any harm."

"We know exactly what's happening." Fingers preen at the collar, trying to situate it back into the proper place because she only has four shirts, and this is one of them. She must fill out forms to get new shirts which is absurd, because if she had clearance she could go buy her own shirts. There's paperwork for everything and always a clause why she cannot leave the complex without explicit verbal or written permission.

"Vala, you maybe want to do something to help?"

"Gray Girl," she addresses the alien, vaguely aware of Cameron trying to reel her back in by the collar. She dodges his swipe at the last second. "We cannot understand you. Is it possible that you enunciate just a squish?"

The girl speaks to them in a language she's never encountered. Even when skimming through the files on Daniel's computer after she hacked it to prove she wasn't the only one who visited non-work friendly websites. Her words fluctuate between nips of soft sounds and explosive growls of certain syllables. Her body sways with each sound, harmonizing hips for emphasis. She both moves and speaks like a lavatory lamp.

The infant begins to wail again. Face forever wet with tears. Cameron pivots on his foot, stepping forward to whisper, "Why isn't she tearing our limbs off?"

"Perhaps she doesn't do that." Mimics the girl's actions, tilting her head to the side to view her as she is being viewed. "Or simply doesn't want to. Maybe not in front of the baby. Pass it to me."

Before he can protest she plucks the infant up and holds it at arm's length away. The girl rears, feet toppling backwards, and it becomes very clear a diaper change is needed. "See the child is evil, the silver monster doesn't want a thing to do with it."

The gray girl furrows her eyebrows as if in sudden pain and exhausts a whimper from her lips, her rotations slow until she is barely moving at all.

Cameron leans forward again, his breath hot and his voice a low rumble. "I think she can understand you."

"What? No." But as she answers the gray girl nods her head in agreement, her mouth slightly pouting but still opened, corners not frowning or smiling, simply just observing the unfolding drama.

"Oh yes she can, you'd better apologize to her quick."

"Look Gray Girl." The infant squirms in the air as an offering, legs kicking, and grunting much like Cameron. She folds it into the corner of her arm. Limbs become more ambulatory and circle through the air much like the gray girl's do. The movement is strong and shocking probably because she's never had the opportunity to hold a baby before. Would like to close her eyes and pretend, but it's much to late for that. "I'm sorry if we upset you, we can't understand you. But your skin is a brilliant color. Well done."

The gray girl nods and smiles and continues to dance for them. Her voice fluctuates again, almost visual in the air, vocal highs and lows partnered with jovial movements. Almost like ballet, but a little more sensual. She knows what it looks like but doesn't say a word less Cameron get short with her again.

One reflective gray finger sways through the air and stops just before contact with her arm or the baby. The gray girl bounces back on the pads of her feet, then stretches for the baby again.

"I think she wants the child."

The gray girl nods and purrs from her throat floating her hands towards her chest to signal relinquishing the baby.

"Do not give him to her." Cameron, swift in his clonks, presses in beside her, standing before the device which still smells of trash, or perhaps it's the child's diaper.

"This is not our child," reminds and holds the infant, now wailing like a security alarm, out at arm's length again for the gray girl to scoop up.

"Vala—" Sounds both hurt and shocked, just as he was when he dropped straight onto his face from the ceiling. However, his exclamation and probable recrimination halt when the gray girl coddles the child, nuzzling it to her nose.

"See."

"Oh." His body relaxes beside her, throwing off heat everywhere, a lot of heat lately, solar panels at the complex malfunctioning and generating heat on the lower levels, her dorm level, instead of air conditioning. Falling asleep with a comforter to be awoken by her pajamas sticking to her skin. She's complained but the malfunction is tenacious and returns every other day.

"Good job." She doesn't want it to mean as much as it does. Praise, not really praise, just acknowledgement. Her old attitude, her persona of thievery, sly movements in the shadows and grand escapes lurk far in the back of her mind. She changed. She changes and they're hesitant to accept it as they feel she's always double crossing them. She supposes it's warranted, but she's learned how to trust them more than any others she ever has, that the trust isn't equal is painful.

But he's actually looks at her, directly at her, and she tries to not fidget, not to pick at something in her teeth, because he doesn't like to have face-to-face conversations with her unless they're for reprimanding. He smiles thoughtfully, and she darts her gaze away from him. "Thank Y—"

The gray girl whistles with two fingers in her mouth, and the baby doesn't even think to stop screaming.

"What was that?"

"Oh, probably a call alerting others." Truly fidgets because as with all her intuitive plans, they tend to backfire and make the situation much more difficult and much more dangerous, then Cameron or Daniel or whomever she's accompanying from SG-1 becomes irate in disappointment.

Keeps the smile on his face as a mask for the gray girl, even though she appears fluent in English. He bumps her shoulder with his, "Do you have any weapons?"

"No." Shakes her head and her pigtails helicopter near his face.

"You were awake, and you didn't think to find a weapon."

"It's not that I wasn't looking for one. I did things in the proper order." A tiny little yellow robot, the size of a meal tray appears at the toe of her boot. It has flashlights for eyes and lets out pulsating beeps as it scans them. She steps over it. "I evaluated the injured and moved you into a position where you wouldn't suffocate on your face."

"Vala."

Spins around accentuating with her hands the work she's done. Followed protocol to the syntax of each sentence in the procedural outlines "When it became apparent you weren't in critical condition, I accessed the room for safety issues."

"Vala."

The weeks she spent in an interrogation room combing through the processes, the several theoretical quizzes and three field tests for following the rules. Their rules. The psychological exams that frightened her because they would see her faults, her fears and her worth. "Upon my examination of the room for immediate threats of death or injury, I found no weapons."

"Vala," he shouts.

"What?" So she shouts.

The baby stops crying, and the gray girl's slanted syllables drop from the air. Even the little robots pump the breaks and halt in their mechanical chittering.

"What are these?" Crouches to touch one but it reverses away from his fingers. Another curiously parks beside his shoes. "They look like horseshoe crabs."

"What on Earth is a horseshoe crab?" Cautiously eyes the two at her feet, and the one crawling around the circumference of the unsteady table. It pauses and trains its lights on her. She blocks them with her palm, then gently pats it on the head. It accepts and chirps.

"Ahh," Cameron cries out in pain behind her, his face red and his body crumpling to the floor.

"Cam—" She gets one step before something pierces through her left combat boot, cold and crippling and she falls forward unable to catch a breath.


	3. Interrogation Tactics

_A/N:Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed. I apologize about the delay between this chapter and last, real life and other stories got in the way. I will continue to update as I can and hope you continue to enjoy._

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 3

Interrogation Tactics

"If you started answering my questions, things would go a lot quicker."

"Not until you answer my question."

He's chained to a metal table in a brand new room with white bumpy walls that are probably soundproof. It kind of looks like a place where the space military meets up for band practice without getting dad mad.

Woke up here with the side of his face pressed into a cold table. The same side of his face that hit the ground at high speed after the zen stones worked their voodoo. His face is sore. It's making him sore. The taste of tin in his mouth and the clanging of his cuff leash against the metallic surface reminds him of utensils scratching up the bottom of his mom's good china that last quiet Christmas before she died. Makes him miss Deke's screams. He misses Deke.

Feels like he's being good copped and bad copped at the same time by an army general who can't make up his mind. When his vision cleared for the second time tonight, the good General Landry introduced himself—he was still wiping the spit away from the corners of his mouth while the General apologized for their curt behaviour—tazed from behind by his own interdimensional Earth neighbors, an olive branch it was not. The exposition continued—the base couldn't have two people looking the same part as two other people—one who's in a position of power—running around. They needed to suss out the situation and blah blah blah—he might have taken a quick five. Still hasn't answered the good General. Not true. He's said several things, but they're the same sentence running on repeat to the tune of chain clanking music and Milli Vanilli lyrics.

"This isn't an interrogation, or a hostage situation." Landry's unchained hands mock him and teepee against the tabletop silently. "We want you to go home. We want you back with your people and our people back here."

So he smiles alluringly to draw the General in and mimics the teepee though it's not quick full steeple and the cuffs are so loud they sound like a dump truck hitting the side of a building. "Where is my wife?"

The good General groans at the question, a little bit of sweat peeking out from his temples and his receding hairline. He sort of looks like the human version of Rygel. How much does he eat? Does he have concubines? God, he wants to see him ride around on a little throne. "Are you hungry at all? Thirsty? Colonel Mitchell isn't the biggest fan of coffee, but I can get someone to bring you a cup."

Leans in on one elbow, slick skin greasing up their nice disinfected table. Everything about him is infectious, the vomit stain, the moist skin, the head wound that's going to open if he lands on his damn face one more time. Sets his jaw, mulling over the decision. Coffee on Earth from a military base is probably as good as coffee from the hospital where they spent all nighters with his mom. "Donde esta mi esposa."

Finally, the bullshit runs dry and the teepee collapses. The General's face looks like it's melting. His does too. Being in the hot seat, an obvious interrogation, makes him sweat a bit. Deke's dried vomit smells sweet and sour being aggravated by his sweat. "I just want to have a conversation about where you're from and what happened before you got here. What do I need to do to get that conversation started?"

"Quid pro quo, Lector. Bring me my wife."

He chuckles in this throat and it bobs like a certain Hynerian's. Small eyes rolling and disappearing into folds of skin. "Son, you have a one-tracked mind."

"Well Dad, you took my family away."

The laughter dies in his throat and his skin ripples when he swallows. Bushy eyebrows droop in seriousness. "We don't have your son."

"Yeah, I believed that before you tazed our asses and separated us into interrogation bunkers." Hasn't been tazed before, at least not with whatever they used—weird snake thing that made a weird non-snake sound. Every sound here is annoying, and he never thought he would wish for their son's deafening screams. Silence isn't silence on Earth.

"It's protocol to question off world visitors separately," The General states matter-of-factly with an empty hand gesture. Like he's being roped into rules that he's written.

"Ah-Ha," shouts and raises his hands to point his accusations, but the chain catches short and he hits himself in the side of his sore face. They have sides of the bed, the smallest bed on Moya—well Deke's space bassinet would be the smallest, but co-sleeping is so exhausting. Can't move off his side, the same sore side. The same punched up jaw from where he smacked his face off the floor resetting a wormhole weapon. "So this is an interrogation."

"No, it's a Q&A session."

"So, she's being questioned in another room?"

"Yes."

"And she's telling you less than I am."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because you're interrogating her," he states matter-of-factly copying the empty hand gesture. His dad would tell him not to be a smart ass, respect the authority even if it isn't his Earth's authority. Aeryn would—well she'd be quiet because she's giving him the silent treatment because of the thing they're going through where they need to talk but can't get to it because of more pressing matters.

"She held Colonel Carter at gunpoint—"

"You. Tazed. Us." Slaps his hand against the table with each word. Phantom spasms still clench his muscles every few minutes.

"We have no malicious intent."

"Well, then you'd be the first."

"Stuff like this happen to you two often?"

"More often than not." The dance they do of obsessive to the point of entombment with emotions. The basic desire—the need to touch, and stroke, and taste resulting in shoving away, the fighting then silenced tongues. They separate and rekindle and set ablaze and now they're married and is this going to be happening forever? "She'll leave and I wait and I have to save her but to do that she has to save me after."

"Well, that is not what I meant, but it sounds tiring."

"That's not what's tiring." Woke up with a baby beside him. Their son, and he told him for the first time that Crichton's don't cry which is a lie. He cries all the time. In front of people. Alone. In the shower. The shower is great for fluid reduction that doesn't result in thousands of tiny crying Crichton's in a seven-cycle stasis. "Are we in Australia?"

"United States."

"Somehow I always end up back in Australia." Finding her behind him with a gun trained on him. His hand on her knee for stability. His, she was more solid than when he was a statue. Trusted him. Followed him. Strolled through the rain with open-mouthed awe and he was in love. He is in love. "Look, where's my goddamn wife?"

"You come back to Earth often?" A weird information seeking pickup line in the garage band bar. The subject change instant and distracting like rapid fire questions at the end of trivia shows. "Have family members who can vouch for you?"

"Just my wife if you wanna bring her in here."

"I'm willing to allow a break in protocol to reunite you two because SGC hasn't exactly extended an olive branch to you—"

"You did, you just beat us with it and then tazed our asses."

Ignores the interruption and launches from the table without even shaking it—so he tries to shake it and it doesn't budge. It must be made from pure adamantium. "—However, you need to give me some information about yourself: A full name, and where you came from."

"The first time we came back it was in Australia and they kept asking questions like that."

"Didn't end well?"

"They killed two of our friends but we—I always wondered if that was the night." The rain pounding at the window, the rain still wet on her neck. She was in a full business suit when he woke, maps everywhere and plotting a journey to India. What would it have been like to be on the lam with her. Playing Bonnie to her Clyde, telling her not to shoot every single person they spoke to. Would it have been hard to find a surgeon to release the baby if that had been the night. "It turned out to be a simulation and my friends are still alive—well, one of them is. It still felt so real."

"Not a simulation, Son. You're in America. Colorado."

"You know." Fidgets to get into a comfortable position—the heavy metal chair now digging into the back of his thighs no doubt leaving a red line or two. A blue line or two. When did she know? Really know. Because seven years is a lot of time, and maybe she always knew that it was his and not his all at once. "Normally, I'd say something rebellious like, 'you're not my dad', but I don't think my dad exists on this version of Earth. So you can be my this Earth Dad, I guess. Want to meet your daughter-in-law?"

"I'm sure if he does exist, he'd like to know you're okay."

Time to give a little because he's played banter backswing like Agassi and isn't getting anywhere. If anything is true it's that Aeryn can take care of herself and hold her own, and because of that he needs to be the weakest link and bend to keep things in motion. "We've spent most of our time in the Uncharted Territories."

"Where's that?"

"In the Milky Way and to the left a bit."

"How long were you there for?"

"Spent about a month there after the war to take it easy and deal with the baby." Thought Deke was always hungry—not a Crichton thing, but Rygel did carry him for a quadmester—Grandmama cooked up batches of food they mashed down until they could find a trading post. The money and the danger to grab a Capri Sun pack of the awful smelling crap almost wasn't worth it. He's a hybrid. Doesn't know of he needs the PK vitamins. Doesn't know if he can just have mashed space banana. Doesn't know of he can regulate his own heat because he's red and hot and always in an awful mood for being a fucking baby. "Look, I told you what you wanted to know, I just want to see my wife."

"I need a name."

"I thought it was General Landry." Fighting for her. Always fighting for her even when there's no one to fight. Even when it's her he has to fight for her. Even when he has to fight himself. Did other him ever treat her like this. "Commander John Crichton of IASA. I went up on a wormhole mission in 1999 called the Farscape Project."

"Well, I can honestly say I've never heard of you or your mission."

"Gee, thanks Dad."

A knock at the door interrupts the General's speed walk around the concrete floor. The door opens and a parade of Colonel Carter, the blonde scientist with the biggest eyes he's ever seen, strolls in followed by Aeryn, followed by fived armed guards—with their guns ready at attention. Two of the guards are bruised up and he's never been prouder.

When Carter stops, Aeryn stops and the guards form a semicircle around her, blocking out the doorway and creating one hell of a fire hazard. Carter divulges, "she's speaking an alien dialect, Sir, one I've never heard."

Both she and the General turn his way, eyes squinting with irritation or maybe allergies, or sweat because it's so damn hot in this room. His eyes slam to Aeryn, still in his shirt, still in Calvin's underwear and her body sort of glows under the lights. She's sweating. He worries.

"You might want to go tear Dr. Jackson away from his preparations." Carter nods and breaks through the wave of armed men at the door. The General nods to the soldiers, one steps out of formation to fiddle with Aeryn's handcuffs—ones she could very easily snap in two—another comes and undoes his because he's pathetic and can't move the table. "I'll leave you two alone for a moment."

The General walk to the soldiers—parting them like the red sea—but stops in the light of the open doorway. "These men and three more will be posted outside this door. We've just started building a rapport, becoming violent would be an awful setback to a peaceful alliance."

He rubs his raw wrists, he did try to break the cuffs—knew Aeryn would, and that's why he had to Bonnie. He has to take a backseat and be the platonic explainer. The off-planet orator. "Don't be calling the kettle black now."

His comment goes ignored, of course, and the door slams shut. Heavy clunking echoes as it's bolted in place. So, if they do break out and into the royal rumble in the hallway from the hell in the cell, it should prove to get him nice and tired.

Sways on his feet a bit while meeting her on the other side of the table. She's rubbing her wrists as well, her cuffs tighter because she obviously broke out of the first set. Red and a little raw, nothing too serious. His fingers trace over the where the soft skin becomes blistered. Her heat is obvious. "You okay?"

Aeryn wrenches her arm away so fast he thinks he touched a soft spot, or maybe his body heat is agitating hers. He takes a step back. "No Crichton, I don't know where my son is."

She bursts by him, away from the door and the mirror on the wall that's not fooling anyone. False anger to create a private situation where lips and words can't be interpreted. Or real anger and he's going to get hit in the side of the head again. "No, we know he's on Moya. We don't know where Moya is." He pads after her, loyal as ever, and adds, "Also friendly reminder—he is our son. Your son. My son. Your son. My son. Our son, Aeryn."

"Then start acting like it." Loud over his impression—the impression of a man who hasn't left his room in over almost a month because pinhead priests don't know how to keep the peace. Her words are loud. He sees them. Floating in the air, heavy like cartoon anvils. Bolded and underlined and italicized to for emphasis. So heavy they suck the air from his lungs from their gravitational pull and he can't answer her because other him probably wouldn't do this. "Do you even care?"

In the littlest of broken down squeaks he's able to answer while memorizing the concrete swirls in the floor. "Of course I care."

She's perched on the table now. Soundless and light. Legs sticking to the surface, skin glistening and reddening under her eyes, her tired eyes, the eyes that he made tired "You seem to have regrets."

And she thinks he doesn't want this—well of course he doesn't want this, he doesn't know where the hell they are, and he wants it to be cooler and her to be happier and not tired and just content and in his arms like the briefest of moments after an Australian cloudburst seasoned her skin. "I don't have regrets, it's just—" Plops beside her, the very image of a drunken bear, his ass hits the metal with a thunk and his leg jostles into hers, peeling the skin away to reveal more redness. "Everything happened fast, I need time to adjust."

"You adjusted to living in space quiet easily." Should be talking about more pressing matters, how many soldiers she thinks she can take out, so he knows how many he has to, what they're going to tell the General if they can't break out of here. If she has any idea at all how to get home. But sometimes less pressing stuff is just more pressing. Sometimes sitting with his wife in an interrogation room—that has definitely not been the place of an alien murder or autopsy—and talking about how their lives have changed since getting married and having a baby and stopping an intergalactic war is more pressing.

Sometimes watching the way her eyelashes fan and her teeth tap just before biting her lower lip, like the words she exhaled might hurt him because he taught her compassion—he didn't other him did—is always more important. "No, I didn't. I'm still adjusting."

Talking forward like they always do, giving the wizard behind the curtain—plump General behind a mirror—a good old show. "Do you assume it was easy for me?"

Wants to touch her. Needs to, jostle her again with his leg, or lean shoulder to shoulder, or ensnare her hand with his. Check to see how hot she is. Ask her short-term memory questions. "No, I know it was a hell of a lot harder for you, but you're stronger than me."

"I never wanted children."

"Okay, well, I think this conversation is a few weeks too late." His hand floats back to his lap cupping over the sweats on his knee. The notion in his head that touching her will make her hotter—not just temperature wise—cause an infinite loop of tiny Crichton spores kept in her Schrodinger's uterus.

Faces him straight, and he could trace the lines under her eyes with his fingers, taste the salt of her skin. "I never wanted children because they would be taken from me by the Peacekeepers and raised how I was. Then Scarrans wanted my baby and I had to fight for my life and a life that wasn't my own." She turns away from him again, eyes glassy but strong and narrowing as she adds, "and I did that for you."

"For me?"

"Because I knew how badly you wanted the baby, how important family is to you. I couldn't deny you your family."

"You—" He has to pause and think it through. Think through why she left Moya in her prowler without him if she was aware of the pregnancy. To release the baby, or to _release_ the baby. "You didn't want our son?"

"He was never unwanted, just under appreciated by me." Her grin grows like the sun over Kansas fields, and her eyes light up and he's happy she's happy. "But when I saw him I knew I loved him and needed to protect him, so he didn't end up like me." Smile clouds over and everything returns to darkness. A single tear shudders from her eye. "And now I cannot do that John. I can't do that."

"Come here." Drapes an arm around her shoulders and is surprised when she doesn't immediately shrug it off or tear it from his body. She's burning up, and his calm expression washes from his face in the realization of the danger. "He's on Moya with Pilot and Chiana and Granny." Swallows hard and works double time to keep the panic from blurring his eyes. "They'll take care of him, they'll keep him safe for us because he's their family too."

"I hate this," mumbles into his shoulder, the black cotton sticking to both their skin.

"I know." His hand falls to her hip and he gives a small squeeze for reassurance, his and hers. Mostly his. She's too hot.

"No, being emotional." Finally, she pulls away with a large snuffle. Too hot to embrace—too dangerous. Kicks up the anxiety in his belly, the one that makes it so hard to sleep. The one where all the baddies in Arkham Asylum are vying to get revenge on him through his wife and son.

"Honey, you just had a baby. You just need time to adjust." Always forgets she did all the work. All of it, released the baby herself, stayed alive during torture he's never asked about because he thinks even if she sugar-coats it he'll cry—like a baby—with their son.

"That's the problem, John. I've already adjusted." He was moral support sure, but he also had a war to win and a wormhole to birth, does she ever take into account what he had to do to—No Deke's birth was definitely worse, he never tried to cut the wormhole out with a knife. It never got stuck breech in his frontal lobe.

"It's a big change being responsible for—"

"You were always responsible for us, and us for you. I don't think that's what's bothering you."

"Then what is?"

Her lips are starting to chap, and they pull tightly against her features as she speaks words she doesn't want to. Just as he's the scapegoat—the Curly always butterfingering their interrogations or interactions up to keep operations running smoothly—her sacrifice comes in being throat cuttingly honest even when she doesn't want to be. "The permanence of it."

* * *

Face down again. Face down and the air is humid from his nostrils to his face. The bridge of his nose hurts, but not enough to be broken. Does another push up, expects some blood, but there is none. Broke his nose before and doesn't want to fill out an incident report saying the cause of his broken nose was a just nasty fall.

His eyes dart around to focus on a baby crying and the phantom movements of someone rocking the kid. A voice, not Vala's accent, hits the air with small bursts like a songbird cheep. "Shush up little gnarl, your parents are just being a little fahrbot right now."

"I can hear her." Vala scrambles up beside him. Her shoulder knocks him arm out from under him and he half collapses.

"So can I," he mutters rubbing his nose, then his elbow.

She crouches and leans in, one of her pigtails rests on his shoulder and she whispers loud enough that the baby can probably understand her. "I meant understand her."

"Obviously."

"What the biznak's gotten into you two." The alien tilts her head, swiveling it forward as he pulls himself up using the unsteady table. Her cat eyes blink twice. Her voice, the words she chooses, she sounds much younger than he'd anticipated. "I—I mean the loud arguing is nothing, but whatever you did blew out your translator microbes which I never heard of happening."

"Okay, look." Takes a step forward, a diverting tactic. Draw attention to himself to protect his teammates. In less dangerous situation, the background teammate might even be able to scurry away using the distraction of the conversation. "We have no idea who you are or where we are."

Vala didn't get that memo, or the training. Or any basic understanding of tactics in a potentially dangerous situation. Instead she falls to conversation and flattery powered purely by luck. Her luck has the potential to overpower them all. As a team they agreed to never tell her about lottery tickets. "Not true we're on a ship—"

Slides a hand out at her side, halting her from making further contact or conversation with the alien. "Not helping."

The baby hiccups and the alien purrs at him, rocking him in the cradle of her arm. She plasters a nervous smile to her face—white teeth, pink gums, and silver lips. He's never seen anything that looks remotely like her before, except for maybe a slinky barn tabby he had as a kid. "Stop kidding around. We're still on Moya."

"What is Moya."

Her grin falls to the floor and the baby abruptly starts to choke back into crying. She moves forward, her head angling the opposite direction, Vala follows suit. He rolls his eyes. "Pilot did we go through any anomalies, cosmic magnetism, space dust, weird light? Anything like that?"

Not quite sure if she's speaking with him, or Vala, or a third party. Then on a device that resembles a clam, a picture of an alien—which also looks like a clam—joins their conversation. "No Chiana, Moya hasn't flown by anything like that in several solar days, why?"

He and Vala stand still, mouths still agape, her head still slanted, and both their eyebrows hit the roof. Glances towards her to gauge her reaction, after all she is the alien, and she just pulls her lips tight, nodding with the widest eyes he's ever seen.

"Aeryn and John are acting really weird." The alien's attention falls back on them, and he clamps a hand on Vala's wrist to get her to stop bobbing around. It's like she has her own gravity. Hell, maybe she does.

"I can analyze their physical data and see if I can verify—"

"What?" Hard to hear now because the baby hollers, his mouth gummy and opened. The alien—Chiana?—she places the kid back down on the table, unwrapping his blanket. The whiff of a very ripe baby enters the air and he groans. When the clam alien doesn't continue Chiana glances up from swaddling the kid. "Verify what?"

"Chiana," There's a long pause. Maybe their communication cut out. Maybe they did go through an anomaly and this whole thing isn't directly his fault for allowing the communication device back into SGC. "That is not John or Aeryn."

Chiana pivots with her whole body. The perfect basketball block. Ends up in the doorway. Eyes blinking wild and unfocused. "So who the frell are you then?"

"We're from Earth." Shows the palms of his hands to prove he's not a threat. "We work with the military using stargates."

"What the frell's a stargate?" Her head cranks to the side.

"It's a wormhole that—"

"Does every Crichton obsess over wormholes?"

"I'm sorry." Vala takes a step forward. When she tries to take another he tightens his grip on her wrist. She tugs once, and with an irritated sigh, continues, "but what's frell? What's a Crichton?"

"Frell, is, well," Chiana pauses, then with a grin and a shrug adds, "frell."

"Helpful."

"And Crichton is you." A gray finger directs to him this time. It circles in the air like any other of her appendages.

"We're Crichton?" Vala gestures with her hands between their bodies, then sends a flashy grin and nod to Chiana.

"No," Chiana shakes her head and Vala's grin falters. "He's Crichton."

Vala squints her eyes trying to decipher the language already deciphered for them by whatever they were injected with. His foot still aches like he stepped on a wasp. "So Crichton means man."

"No." Again Chiana shakes her head, and the kid is oddly quiet now, like himself, as they watch the exchange. "Man means man."

"Wonderful." Vala is all teeth and claps again even though she's been told information she's already knew. At this point Jackson would have escorted her back to the device and continued his conversation for more information. He, however, finds it slightly amusing because both women don't show any sign of irritation. Calmly trying to bypass what left of the language barrier with patience and grins. "what does Crichton mean?"

"Oh my God," he chuckles at her. Not entirely at her, more like at her tenacity, her inability to not stop poking the bear.

"Crichton is his name."

"No, he's Cameron."

"Well he looks like Crichton. Does he get grouchy quickly?" Vala and Chiana stand beside each other, like old friends meeting up in a coffee shop. The rapid-fire dialogue gives way to nodding and pensive looks before answers.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you." Vala touches her chest with one hand in a gesture of gratitude and Chiana's arm with her other. Jackson would hate this.

"Enough."

"Enough with you." Chiana tries to shoo him away even though his interruption isn't more than him situating himself back in the conversation.

Vala hugs herself to his arm and he fights the urge to roll his eyes. "Cameron isn't bad at all, he's very helpful and quite a gentleman. His mother also makes excellent pies." Her words leave him speechless for a moment. Usually, they carry a heavy tone of mockery, but her voice is very genuine and he cracks a grin at her making hers grow.

"Then who are you? You're supposed to be Aeryn."

"I'm Aeryn?"

"She's Vala." He introduces her and with her arms still wrapped around his and it reminds him of his high school reunion. He still has a picture of them with a bee and the worst smiles he's ever seen tucked away somewhere in his dorm.

"Vala." Chiana says the name again and then nods with approval. "Yeah you're way too happy to be Aeryn and your hair is cuter."

"Chiana, do you know what happened?"

"Frell if I know."

"Oh" Vala jumps making him jump slightly in surprise. The horseshoe crabs are still scurrying around the floor. Maybe they jabbed her with something else. They remind him of replicators. He hates replicators. "Frell means fuck."

Pats her arm in appreciation. "I got that."

"Hey, I did see that weird hookah light up though."

"The weird—"

"Ha." Vala slaps him in the chest and spins around back to the device. "See, I told you."

Guilt pricks at his stomach. She did warn him, and he assumed it was going to be a normal transfer. Up at 0600 to watch soldiers load the thing into a transport. Sign and stamp the papers and finish out the day. For his early morning sacrifice, he was going to get the next day off, and he had plans. Amy was flying in. "So much for not saying the actual words."

"What?" Chiana joins them soundlessly approaching from behind and shoves her head in the space between theirs to stare at the device. He gets a good second scare.

"This device," he begins but notices the kid is finally asleep in her arms. He lowers his voice to a whisper, "transfers consciousness from one body to another throughout galaxies"

"But we have our own bodies," Vala reminds both completely unhelpful and helpful at the same time. What caused them to teleport instead of transferring? The docs back at Cheyenne Mountain have hopefully realized about the switch—or disappearance—by now. Jackson and Carter working together should have this thing cracked by noon.

"Who else is on this ship?" Chiana's eyes flicker and she lurches on her feet, shoulders flying up in defense. Vala smacks him in the shoulder with the back of her hand and he clears his throat as he clarifies, "I just want to know if anyone else can help us."

Chiana's mouth skews to the side as she processes his question, "well there's me, Deke, Stark, Pilot, the old woman, and Moya."

"Oh, I want to meet the old woman first."

Again, silences Vala with a tug on her wrist and her enthusiasm disappears from her face. "I thought you said Moya was the ship."

"She is."

"So she's a person? Has an avatar?"

"No, but she's alive."

"We're inside a ship that's alive."

Vala grasps his wrist now, effectively killing off his next question. "Are we to be digested?"

"No." Chiana laughs and the baby gurgles. She sways him again and turns her eyes towards the ceiling and then the walls. "Moya's a ship, she's always happy to have passengers on board."

"Chiana," The clam lights up again showing the same shell alien, but it doesn't have the same peaceful tone as before, and its eyes squint as it speaks to her. "Moya wishes the trespassers be brought to my den immediately for examination."


	4. Manhandled

_A/N:_ _I'm trying to write more of this, but it's very hard. The dialogue flows so easily but then adding in the inner monologues and actions takes forever. Please be patient and I'll try to update when I can._

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 4

Manhandled

"How many times are you going to make me repeat myself when I know you're video recording this." He's lax, a boneless pile thrown into the chair beside her; his fellow humans keeping disparaging acts of violence to a minimum. 'Man-handled' as he called it, 'unwanted physical contact resulting in proper defense' in her lexicon.

This General is much different from the captains in the Peacekeeper army. His eyebrows vacillate with compassion and comprehension. He may be an authority in extracting pertinent information from prisoners, but his quirks and mannerisms remind her of John's father. "We just want to get our ducks in a row."

"Ducks?" The room is plagued with people, far to many and every microt that passes the temperature raises more klances. Despite them cultivating what they term a 'peaceful' interrogation process, there is every suggestion that they're employing a slow raising heat-based torture tactic to get her to be more agreeable.

"It's an idiom, Honey." His attention on her is brief, showering it on the General and the dozens of similar apprearanced soldiers, but amplifies as he returns, his eyes narrowing perhaps detecting the bit of sweat blistering at her hairline. The expectation is that he will say something to divulge her weakness, and in doing so it will result in their extortion for her good health. Instead, he clarifies with an analytical expression. "Ducks are easier to shoot if they're all lined up."

"Obviously."

"She does speak English, right?" The General directs his stout fingers towards her, and as those expressive brows lower she's privy to the glisten of something in his eyes. "Because she was speaking English when you got here."

Rather than answer him, she crosses her arms, ignoring the squelching of moisture in her armpits and pooling underneath her breasts, leaning forward and resting against her knee in boredom.

John leans in slightly, his wayward hand resting further up the expanse of her thigh where the Calvins have rolled under. "You can chime in on this whenever you want to—"

Plucks his hand, radiating an untold heat directly into her body, from her thigh with a forefinger and thumb. Refuses to make eye contact with him and continues her dialogues in Sebacean. "I will not be revealing any information which could lead them to Moya and allow them to harm my son."

The second man at the table, the one who replaced the only female she's witnessed so far, finally moves from where his hands were clasped against his mouth in what looked to be a prayer. His skin is tight around his face, his lips very pale and his eyes appear uneven under the thin-rimmed spectacles pinned to his face. He addresses John, but his finger juts at her in succession. "How do you understand her?"

John attempts to lean himself back in the chair but fails when he finds the material used in its construction too considerable to even jostle. Instead his body refolds, hands burrowing beneath his arms and he sucks in the corner of his mouth. "Translator microbes."

"Which are?"

"Exactly what they sound like."

"Okay." The man scoffs, hot refuse diffusing into the small room, stirring the air and the intensity of temperature empties her lungs. "No need for sass."

But she forgets about John's intuition, his memory of her body and the changes that overtake her in certain conditions. How he's seen her suffer from the delirium twice and both times failed to acknowledge her plea for a quick and satisfying death, instead leaving her to boil in her own body while he searched for a reversal method.

His expression now is one of open concern, flaring nostrils, downturned eyes with pinhole pupils, and as his thumb drips from his lip, she interrupts what she construes as his apprehension, her eyes wrenching shut in the torture of her own body touching. "I don't understand why we haven't broken out of here and searched for a way back—"

Stretches to grasp at her, his hand practically on fire, and she shrugs her shoulder up to halt the impeding contact. The concern then bleeds into hurt with a patient sigh. "Because they're our best way of getting back."

"No, the stones and that device are."

The man with the glasses whom they introduced to them as a doctor, with no military background decidedly on how he carries himself, omits a slight groan, leaning his elbows and hands against the metal table, the same one she has a leg wrapped around trying to siphon away the coolness. "We don't want to hurt you or your friends."

John simply points a finger at him, the gesture a passive challenge. "Tazed."

"We want to send you back." The doctor has not let his attention stray from her. The sensation is all too familiar, being watched, feeling guarded, something she hasn't experienced since the Scarrans. The ability of anyone to view her how she doesn't want to be seen. As small, as incompetent. As just a female. His words trying to elicit compassion from her that does not exist. "We want our people back."

"We just want to protect our people." The General clarifies, his hands flat and spread over the tabletop, his back straight but not arched forward, his words calm with a smattering of an accent sticking on. His effect calming unlike the doctor. "Can you please just tell us if our people will be safe on your ship?"

Moya. Home. Her son stranded in the command center until hopefully Chiana stumbles upon him during one of her never ending routes throughout the ship. She doesn't stop. Her son's red-faced crying, their trials to find him nutrients and meals, the increase in his bodily temperature injecting her with the lingering feeling of transferring her own inadequacies to her offspring, her own faults to bring him down when she just wants to sense the quick raise and fall of his back, of lungs she formed within her, of his gurgles from a slobbering mouth and fat cheeks.

"Is this guy okay?" John gestures the doctor.

"Excuse me?"

"You look like you're about to snap and take out a bus full of kindergarteners."

"I'm a little on edge." The cadence of his voice increases to display the proper level of his indignation. Apparently on this version of Earth, people are quick to offend. "You'll have to excuse me, but you can understand that this is a little bit shocking for us."

Her eyes lock on to this doctor, her body remains stable and unwavering and sweating from all crevasses. Arches an eyebrow at him, and in perfect English, with the drab tone indicating sarcasm, she voices, "for you?"

The men stop their chattering. Even the armed guards creating a ring around the room like a children's game, stop rustling with their weapons.

"Look—" John tucks his head into his palm, fingers tapping at his temple. He becomes uneasy in captivity. He becomes anxious when she will not allow him to touch her. But he never abandons his intuition, has her knowledge of discomfort with this doctor who presumes to know her when she is not the woman he lost. "Can you take him to an exercise pen or something? Run it out of him?"

"I'm sorry." The doctor stutters, not out of nervousness as she's seen men do before, but rather out of irritation. His torso hunches forward, his hands sliding over the table into her territory. Precognitive of her attack should he drift to close, he withdraws just as quickly and instead fumbles to his feet. "Is this some kind of joke for you? Because we lost two of our teammates today—"

John still splays across his chair, his mouth clicking as he sucks in air unimpressed with the diatribe. "And we lost a son."

"Did you ever think that if maybe—maybe if you cooperated—" He continues in his pacing, his boots clomping across the floor, and the General appear unmoved as if this is a regular occurrence.

During the second round of his speech she blinks and becomes lightheaded at the amount of words his mouth hurls into the air, each one hot and weighted. Never thought it possible that a man could speak more than Crichton. Steadies herself with fingers clamping down on the cold table surface, panting as if she's back running drills again.

Before her husband has a chance to voice his concerns, the doctor's hand falls to her own, blanketing her in unwanted contact, unrequired concern, and unhealthy heat. With cloudy vision and a weak equilibrium, she still managers to spring from the chair sending it clattering back into the wall and connect a single balled fist with the handsy doctor's nose. "Do not touch me."

All the soldiers click into position, drawing their arms and aiming at her.

John, intent on keeping their negotiations, rather their interrogations, as peaceful as possible. Wants to tell him if he wanted to spare her the torture he never should have sent her to search for Leviathan parts out all those cycles ago. "Okay, that was self defense. He was in her private space."

"You're in her private space." The doctor lurches back, his hand pinching the tip of his nose and cupping to catch the blood ribboning out of it.

"We're married you tool."

"All right, well I think that's it for negotiations today." The General is again, unperturbed as if this is also a regular occurrence. The door groans open, hot metal expanding and impacting brick and concrete. The squadron of soldiers slowly flow out of the room, draping the hallway in armed protection. "I think we all might do a little better on a good night's rest."

The doctor catches himself in the doorway, hand fully consuming his nose and his eyes watering and narrowed. "You know you're not really gaining our trust"

Her English rebuttal is forgotten in her head as she starts to shake on her feet, and when she scrambles to dictate the stages of heat delirium to herself, she finds she can't. John crosses his arms, partly to gather attention, partly protective possessive, and steps slightly to guard her. "The feeling is mutual"

* * *

"So—" She focuses on the ceiling, not really seeing any moving parts or receptors, or any sort of gooey bits one would generally expect when inside a digestive system. "We're in a stomach right now?"

The gray girl slinks ahead of them, the baby resting its head on her shoulder, its tiny blue eyes trying to focus on Cameron or herself, but the bounce of their steps, even over slated metal, causes his attention to flicker, frantic for a destination to stop. A feeling she knows all too well. "Moya doesn't have a stomach."

"Then how does she eat?"

"How the frell should I know?" Chiana doesn't really spat the answer, but her voice becomes punctuated, her words curt.

"Vala." Cameron's large hand curls around her bicep and yanks her closer to him as they walk, she glances at his hand on her and then to his face, cocking an eyebrow at him, which immediately gets her released. He clears his throat and then falls into a bit of a Daniel-esque stutter. "Maybe cool it on the questions."

Her skin prickles in the absence of his hand. Not his touch, although she's never one to complain about a strong pair of masculine hands on her body, but rather the heat. This ship, if it is living, which she's not entirely sure it is, is awfully cold. "You're inside a living thing and you don't want to ensure that you're not going to be digested?"

"The questions are getting us into more trouble," he grumbles from the side of his mouth, his voice steadier, back to the classic army sternness, however she does love when she can get a rise out of him in more than one way.

"We're inside something's stomach, how could we possibly be in more trouble."

"Look—" Chiana pivots on her toes, a swift movement and so perfectly balanced that the child doesn't stir until a few seconds later. "Pilot and Moya aren't angry with you, more concerned about where Crichton and Aeryn went."

"If the ship is alive, then why does it require a pilot."

"Princess, please." He cuts in front of her, copying her half of their chase around the base, wanting her attention for a change and not for a swift reprimanding, but rather a plea. "I'm begging you. Stop. Talking."

"I'm never one to refuse a man on his knees" The expression he gives her is borderline murderous, but she gives him a plush wink and brushes by him as they approach another large door.

"Hey, are you a real princess?" The baby snuffles or hiccups against the gray girl's shoulder, and she switches him to the other with a bit of an upturned nose. "Because there was one time that Aeryn was—"

Cameron cuts in before she has a chance to lay the groundwork for a spectacular lie giving her royal rights, "it's a nickname."

"What's that?"

"A name given by friends to show endearment."

"Oh." She clasps her hands together, and leans her head back to his shoulder, batting her eyelashes at him again with coquettish ease. "I'm endearing to you?"

"In so much as you're on my team and therefore I have a responsibility to care about your wellbeing—" The massive door opens smoothly revealing a very murky chamber with the shell creature from the hologram situated in the middle at a desk of sorts. Many of those things Mitchell called 'whore's who crabs' scatter around the ground and along the wall, their little torch eyes dot the darkness.

"I think this surpasses a subtle affinity to me." With a cheeky grin she picks up her usual position walking backwards while deep in conversation with him. Trying to jam her words out as fast as she can before he eventually shuts down whatever topic she's brings up. "I think you care about me more than you'd care to admit."

"Vala—" His tone isn't completely harsh yet meaning she has a good two or three exchanges in order to work out what she wants to say and decide how much goading she wants to do.

"I'd even wager to say that you—"

Unfortunately, as she takes the next step back, her foot settles on the sudden empty space beside the walkway. Her body starts to tumble backward before she recognizes what exactly is happening, and just as the panic of tumbling storeys down to her death on some random living alien ship sinks in, his arms snatch her up, one on her bicep again and the other on her ribs, settling her beside him with ease.

Then they share an entirely awkward moment where they just gaze at each other as if mid-dance. Just a tingle, just a wisp of a grin.

The ships groans, or perhaps one of the spinning coin doors doesn't connect in perfection to an oblong archway somewhere, either way the noise jolts the finally slumbering infant awake, and in an instant his fists and his face are clutched tight and his wail echoes throughout the cavernous chamber. She and Cameron disengage as Chiana adjusts the child away from her ear.

"Pilot how did they end up here?" The gray girl prowls easily through the precariously thin walkway with not so much as a blink of second guessing her footfalls. The wailing infant also seems undeterred by the infinite drop into nothingness. "Why aren't they Aeryn and Crichton?"

"For starters their heat signatures differ vastly." The monster—rather the alien before her is more enormous than she assumed. When she takes a hesitant step forward in the interest of counting his arms, Mitchell yanks her back into place. The creature—this pilot, pays no attention to the yelp of an outburst she offers, which falls on infant wailing deafened ears. "As she is Sebacean, Aeryn's body temperature is several degrees lower than Crichton's, a human. Crichton also has a lower blood pressure than this man."

"Hey, I am in peak physical health."

To her delight the crab monster rolls his eyes at Mitchell, then continues to explain, "it is due to your nascent exposure to the uncharted territories."

Chiana angles her head, her body climbing forward towards the pilot's desk, sort of perched on the side. "Where did they come from though?"

"Oh, oh." Her hand blasts into the air and in seconds Mitchell is trying to suppress it, she manages to wrench her arm free, and then take a step forward to spite him. "You're in possession of a long-range communication device."

Chiana and the pilot exchange a doubtful, perhaps disapproving look. She flips around on the desk now somewhat crouching to the side still cradling the baby in one arm. "A what?"

"The device on the wobbly table in the room where we met."

"The hookah?"

"The device can actually transport—"

As Mitchell digresses into a somewhat patronizing explanation of what the horrific devices actually are, the baby twitches against the gray girl chest, punting a leg in the air followed by breaking into another wail.

"I'm sorry, but does that child ever stop crying?" She grinds her teeth together, poised fingers pressing on her temple. The sound reminds her of her home world, rampant with multiple marriages and crops of children. The marketplace a dissonant conglomeration of screaming broods and rampant illnesses spread by screaming broods.

Then she remembers what it was like after Qetesh.

"It's a baby," Mitchell huffs, though his tone is more stoic than before. "That's what they do."

"Actually, Deke doesn't stop crying, not really."

"Well can you get rid of him for a moment." The marketplace and her betrothed tugging her along between the swarms of people, the crying and singing. Then crying and screaming. Just screaming and red.

"What."

Cameron waits for clarification but when she doesn't offer any he translates for her. "I think maybe it's time to return the little guy to his parents."

"Sure," Chiana agrees with a squeak of a giggle, then holds the child out to them.

"No. Oh no." The massive step she takes in retreat slams her back into Mitchell's chest.

"You gotta be kidding me." She notes interestingly enough that his expression isn't pure horror as hers is, but rather one of mystification.

"As I've already stated countless times; we are not this baby's parents."

"Although You may not be his biological parents, your physical bodies are very much the same." The pilot's gentle voice cuts through the strain of baby's throaty cries hiccupping in and out. "The familiar faces and voices as the child begins to tune his senses might put him at ease."

"So here." When the gray girl shoves the infant forward, she turns her body away slightly, locking her arms behind her back. Chiana's face skews, her eyebrows furrowing. "Haven't you held a baby before?"

"Briefly before she was pried away from me." Her lie is better than the truth. She also will never require or seek out his pity on the matter. With a roll of her eyes, she holds out her arms, ready to receive the rather weighty child. "Oh, give it here."

Chiana pauses, retaining the child at the last second and correcting, "him."

"Whatever." Snatches the child and settles him gently so his fat chin rests against the skin on her shoulder exposed by Mitchell's pawing earlier. When she chances a glance at him, expecting him to say something biting or pithy, instead he has a wide grin on his face, almost mooning a bit. To hide the blush creeping into her cheeks she ducks her head, settling it on the gurgling infant and with a lilt she adds, "if this infant vomits on me I will wipe it on you."

"Fair enough." The line isn't delivered with a laugh, or a chuckle, or any sort of sarcastic action meant to belittle her, instead she can only hear his smile. When Chiana clears her throat, a knowing expression of side-eyes and a pulled grin, he restarts the topic, "did your long-range communication device have stones?"

"Yeah, two of them."

"We'll need to examine it then." She bounces the baby a bit, itty bitty feet squared off against her hip and the first dollop of drool on her skin.

Chiana nods in agreement, the pilot seems to as well with a soft dip of his massive head accompanied by a slow blink. "I'll take you back to command."

Though uninjured and less jarred than Mitchell on their transfer into the ship, her body is starting to tire and with the added weight of the child she feels an ache already pooling in her lower back. "Is there no faster method of transportation on Mayo?"

"Moya," Mitchell corrects from over her shoulder. His finger ghosting over her skin, tickling at the tiny palms of the baby who begins to sour again, the muscles in his face tightening.

As his guttural wails return, the pilot narrows his eyes at them, just a tad on the judgemental side. "Moya is still not sure you're entirely to be trusted. You should be more appreciative that you're not being vacuumed into space."

"Oh, we are." Mitchell releases the infant's hand and nods along with her, wide and innocent. "We are."

Tired of the crying and the now puddle of drool sliding down the misshapen collar of one of her only four shirts, she rearranges the baby with one hand supporting his bottom and the other arm wrapping around his chest, somewhat primitively buckling him to her for support, but offering him a wider array of people to view. It also works to aim his mouth cannon somewhere besides her very limited wardrobe.

To her, and perhaps everyone's relief, the crying stops, instead replaced with content gurgles motoring out of a very gummy mouth.

Mitchell now wears a half-grin, one she definitely hasn't seen before and all these new positive facial expressions of his are more unnerving than the idea that she still might be masticated by a ship. "How did you do that?"

"Well I'm using my hand to support his tiny—"

"No, how'd you get him to stop crying?"

"I don't know." Shrugs at him and sways with the child, who is warm against her chest and jittering his little legs. "Everything is very dark, and everyone is very serious, I thought perhaps if I entertained him—" When she tucks her head down to view the baby, he looks up at her and give her a wide, toothless grin.

"I think he likes you."

While she appreciates the enthusiasm behind the comments and the underlying intention, properly holding a baby is not the same as pleading with her daughter not to kill and torture millions. "That's a learned response, Darling." But she can't help but grin back down at him. "He likes his mother."

The baby gurgles back at her, and with a happy twitch kicks his feet.

"No." He elongates the word, and stoops to be even height with the infant, again taking his tiny hand and again the infant's face sours. "I think he likes you."

"Well then, I suppose he'd be the first." Glances to Chiana who is obviously reading the exchange between Mitchell and herself, smugness tightening her shining lips.

"No he wouldn't, Princess."


	5. Cold Shoulders

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 5

Cold Shoulders

The hallway they walk down—at his slow pace despite everyone else's swift military speed—looks exactly like all the other hallways, white and metallic with random pipes running through it like they're in a submarine, and tight as hell because if this doctor guy bumps shoulders with him again, he's gonna let Aeryn have a free swing.

Finally, they reach a roundabout of a dead end, a circular room with two doors at what must be the bottom of the mountain and if that's true it should be a lot cooler. His clothes are starting to stick into all his unmentionable nooks and crannies.

The doctor stops right in the middle of the circle, forcing everyone to file in around him, and he takes the opportunity to shimmy up next to his wife, analyzing her sweat glowing face and trying to discern what stage of heat delirium she's at and how much time they have before she make him promise to kill her again. At this point it probably should've just been in their wedding vows.

But that damn doctor clears his throat and gestures towards two doors across the hall from each other. When he speaks, his voice is still nasally, but he's downgraded to only a single tissue sticking out of his nose, slopping up the blood. "The General's delegated these two rooms for you—"

"Hear that, Honey?" He grins through her daggers, trying to be more of a spectacle, to draw any lingering eyes away from Aeryn so they don't see the way she sways slightly on her feet—and because he's caught the guard to his left staring at her ass more than once—and although that's her ass, the wedding vows should've said he's the one who gets to look. "Even though you've beat the shit out of the military's top classicist—"

"Egyptologist, and she only hit me once."

The grin shatters from his face and with a serious grumble he reminds, "that's because it only took one."

Then he nudges her shoulder—because this is kind of a vacation, a vacation under a mountain that might actually be a volcano barring how hot it is, and under the intense watch of other dimension Earth military, and with the threat of her being boiled into a permanent vegetative state, but there's no screaming baby and midnight feedings—which he really never did anyway—and no teeny bed to balance on. "We don't need two rooms."

"Of course you don't." The doctor doesn't make eye contact with her, his head watching the tiled floor as he unlocks a room and gestures through the open doors again. "It's protocol, even for SGC members, no fraternizing."

Okay, so not much of a vacation anymore.

"No sleepovers?" He gets a stiff nod in return—which is the only thing stiff he's going to be getting while on this Earth—he holds his hand up flashing the wedding band they had custom made for him from the melted down metal of an old module part. "We're married."

"As proud as you are of that, it doesn't matter to us." The good Doc gives him a shit-eating grin and stands, nosebleed-stained hands behind his back by the electronic door panel. "John, you'll be in this room and uh—your wife will be across the hall—"

"Her name is Aeryn."

"—and eight armed guards will be stationed outside your rooms in case you get any thoughts."

Neither of them moves and the Doc just sort of stares, like they should know what to do. She arches an eyebrow at him, and he watches a big fat drop of sweat bead from under her chin and slip down her neck in between her breasts.

"Hey!" The Doc shouts to get their attention back, "you do understand that you need to get in the rooms, right?"

"Jeez Dr. Happy, can you give me and the wife a second to say goodnight?"

When he doesn't immediately oblige them, Aeryn speaks up, her voice wavering because he can tell her concentration is on her stance. "Our son is without us, having a moment to negotiate our distraught emotions would be appreciated."

With reluctance, kind of like he doesn't want to see the embrace, the good Doc nods and she throws her arms around him, her body weight into him, and Goddamn it, she's on fire. His shirt pastes to her skin, and she twitches against him from his heat added to hers.

But one of her hands sneaks into his palm, the fingers flat, then suddenly her thumb and pinkie depress throwing him a three.

Three hours until breakout.

* * *

The rooms aren't as bad as he thought they'd be—not as much like a prison as most of the other jailcells he's lived in. There's a bed—a big bed—bigger than the one on—man, he's going to have to let that go.

His finger plucks at the collar of his stained and now sweat drenched shirt as he fans the fabric, then just yanks it off over his head. He's got three hours to kill, and they've been kind enough to leave some basic clothing—military issued of course—on the gigantic bed.

There's an area with a desk, a lamp, and a notepad—even a touchtone phone that's been unplugged and left in the room for decoration. It's dark, not only from being buried however many storeys underground, but the room is constructed with different types of metal and concrete making him miss the dark but warm-hued palette on Moya.

They even gifted him with the smallest bathroom he's ever seen, a toilet, sink and shower in a space so small he couldn't lay down if he wanted to. Naturally, he turns the shower to cold, letting it run and leaving the door open so it cools down the room as he picks out a pair of thin gray sweats and a new plain black shirt.

He hops into the shower, getting shocked by the cold and adjusting the temperature to a relaxing almost lukewarm and praying that Aeryn is doing the same across the hall and not passed out on the ground—tries to tear his mind away from his wife because their son is almost five weeks old, but it's been six weeks—and he's gone six weeks before—but never with someone looking so goddamn hot—not in a literal sense usually—laying less than an arm's length away with her cold skin tickling his fingertips during their blessed ninety minutes of co-sleeping. Her hair soft with oils she still has from Zhaan and her face so peaceful in the lowlight that once he—on purpose—shook her awake to live out the fantasy—but Deke woke too and then that was a whole thing he had to deny.

The water starts to flow warmer than he'd like—or maybe it's just his increase in blood pressure—among other things—and he steps out not even really bothering to towel off because in roughly two and a half hours, he'll be breaking out.

Plans to just air dry on the bed, the big bed he can starfish on happily and maybe catch up on alternate Earth news and it sounds like a movie length dream. His ass actually hits the bed, his eyes closing before he realizes—

How the hell is he going to break out of this room?

* * *

Once the door opens, she's already mid-fray, tossing guys around like sacks of potatoes, disarming guards, guns and men are clattering to the floor left and right. One guy goes to run at her, and he sort of redirects him, punching him in the face, while simultaneously tripping another—guesses the answer to the earlier question is six.

She can take out six armed guards without his help.

"What—took you—so long." She's full out panting now, her hair—that was in a ponytail—is falling free around her shoulders. She's got a different gray tank top on, and what must be military workout shorts that offer her about the same coverage.

"Sorry Baby." He stoops, collecting a concealable weapon for each of them, then plucks her hair tie off the ground, wiggling it into her palm as she leans against the wall. "I had to figure out how to get out of the room. How'd you get out so quick?"

"I—stole a—cardkey from—from the guards as we were—we were—" Raises her hands to collect her hair, but she's sloppy, starting to lose fine motor functions, so he steps up, collects her hair from between her cragged fingers that fall slack, and ties it up as she rests her shoulder against the wall. "You?"

"Me?" Wraps the straggling hairs around the bun he's constructed and it's not going to win him stylist of the year, but it will keep her cooler.

"How did you get out?"

"That. Whatever the card thing you said was."

It's a lie.

He used the pen—left with his desk and notepad—to jimmy the electrical panel open and mess around with the wires until the door hissed open.

"Come on." Tries to retrace their steps, but all the damn hallways look the same and of course on a secret alien military base there's not going to be any 'you are here' signs. To be honest he doesn't even know what they're looking for. He'll start with a way out.

"Where are we going?"

"We just have to make it outside."

"Then what?"

"Then we steal a car or something."

"And go where?"

"Jesus Honey—"

Pauses because she's about half a hallway away still leaning into the wall, breathing just as hard and her knees are starting to knock. He backtracks, wary because if she remembers she's angry at him, he's likely to get one of those knockout punches to the face again and her cognition so far appears to be pretty good. She doesn't even move, just presses the bare skin on her shoulder tighter to the metal in the wall, trying to cool herself and keeps her eyes closed. "I thought you wanted to get out of here."

Her eye sneaks open and she curves an eyebrow at him. "And I thought you trusted these humans."

"Yeah." He fans her shirt a bit, allowing her a few seconds of relief. They must have made it up at least one floor, and it must be late at night because so far, he hasn't seen another soldier except for the pile they left behind. "That was before they started separating and trying to conquer us like a game of risk."

They weave through more of the same hallways, and after a few minutes, he slips his hand into hers because she's trailing too far behind, her footsteps are starting to fall staggered and uneven—tripping her up—and she's gotten too quiet.

When she stumbles into the back of him, he stops allowing her to catch as much of her breath as possible, fighting to not comfort her because that's what she so harshly demanded.

Thankfully a sign—the first he's seen—offers him some hope.

A stairwell sits at the end of the hallway.

As he's deciding if she can make it up however many flights of stairs—or if he can carry her the remaining storeys she can't—she huffs in exhaustion, "where are we going?"

Shit.

Lifts her teetering head, and she still has enough oomph to slap his hand away. They're near the stairwell, there's always elevators by the stairs—it sucks because it'll be enclosed and hotter and easier to snag them, but she needs out of the heat. "Okay we gotta boogey."

"Wait—" Her brow coarsens in confusion, her eyes squinting through the sweat resting around the bags she's collected in the last five weeks. "What?"

Briefly holds her chin in his hand, and greedily plants a kiss on her forehead to judge her temperature—as if he even needed to. His teeth clack off each other, his jaw tenses because this just went from a farcical escape plan to a medical emergency. "We just need to find the elevator."

Drags her along by the wrist now, ducking his head down every hallway, serpentining through this damn mountain. Her feet slap the ground harder at his pace.

"We need to find an elephant?"

"Elevator." That's strike two. He stops, pivoting on his heels. The tank top she has on is too big for her, the strap tumbles over her shoulder and he tugs it back up. "How you doing?"

She yanks her arm away, stumbling back and steadying herself against the wall. He tries to find relief in her bad attitude, the grudge she can—and might—take to the grave, but at this point it's exhausting him. "You do not need to constantly placate me like I'm some—" For a second he believes her, until her hands travel down to the back of her army green shorts and she tugs out the gun he gave to her from the waistband. "Why do I have this?"

"Oh no, no, no, no." Yanks her along now, spinning down each hallway opening, no longer looking for surface level.

"Crichton, what—"

"We gotta get you cooler now." What level would a cafeteria be on? Or a doctor's office. Or just anywhere that isn't on fire, and they knew—they must have known—acting all calm and pseudo friendly before tazing their asses—what if they have Deke? What if this is some elaborate brainfuck done by the Peace Keepers or the Scarrens or anyone because they can't get off his ass long enough to hold up to their end of the—

"Crichton." Manages to wrench her arm away with some reserved force, almost collapsing from using up her energy to snub him. He holds her up as two soldiers stroll by, giving him the side-eye and he just grins and nods until they pass.

"You have heat delirium, Baby." Words against her ear. Her hot ear. Every part of her is on fire as she slumps forward, resting her head against his shoulder. His voice is almost hidden, as his lips brush against her temple. "Escape plan's cancelled."

In a harsh whisper she reminds, "You cannot let them know about this. They will use it to exploit us."

His hand cups the side of her face, thumbing over the shiny layer of sweat on her cheek. "To exploit me, Aeryn."

She seizes him with her eyes, even barely open they won't stray from his. Before he reassures her that this isn't her fault, that her one biological flaw doesn't make her weak—although, it's a pretty shitty weakness to have and their enemies exploit it left and right—someone bellows from down the hallway.

"Colonel Mitchell. Vala Mal Doran."

There's a guy, a big guy, hanging his head out of an elevator waving at them. He doesn't remember the names of their doppelgangers, or ranks, or anything because he was too worried about getting his wife back to listen to half of the words falling out of General Rygel's mouth.

"Is that us?" asks from the side of his mouth, lips barely moving.

She doesn't answer.

So he wraps a hand around her waist, walking her almost unconscious body towards what could very well be this Earth's version of the Terminator. The guy takes a single step—the length of the elevator—back as he shifts Aeryn in, praying she can make the few steps without collapsing.

She does, collecting herself in the corner, peeling the sweaty shirt away from where his hand plastered it to her back.

"How's it going—" Buddy? Big Bear? Tall Boy? "Big Guy?"

Luckily the guy doesn't send a glance his way, instead taking a step closer to Aeryn. "Vala Mal Doran you are sweating profusely. Are you suffering from heat stroke?"

When she doesn't answer in the appropriate beat, he gives her a nudge with his bare foot, and she snaps into action. "What?" Stands straighter for a split second before sliding back down, her cheek pillowing against his shoulder. "I'm—just—tired."

"No, no sleeping yet," he mutters into the hair clumping on the top of her head, his hand jostles her arm, rousing her from resting.

Without turning his attention away from the elevator doors, Big Guy asks, "Is there any update on Daniel Jackson's conference?"

"No, but I'd say he has a bad headache from prepping."

"Why would you say that?"

"No reason, you know, Daniel Jackson."

"Indeed. Are you heading off base to meet with Amy?"

"No, she, uh, cancelled."

"Then where is your destination?"

"We're actually on our way to the cafeteria because Vala left something in there. Isn't that right, Vala?" Elbows Aeryn in the side because she's going to have to say a word or two to make this conversation believable, but her body sort of limp noodles beside him. He flashes a tight grin at the gigantic man he realizes he's stuck in an elevator with, and his ass kicking wife is out of commission. "Isn't. That. Right?"

Aeryn darts awake, almost parkouring off him, kicking him against the button panel and standing, wavering, in the opposite corner. "He wants asylum. If you cannot promise me that right now, I will leave this ship."

"Colonel Mitchell, I suspect deception concerning your intentions with Vala Mal Doran."

Aeryn's fit, her crazy out of context words—at least for the monumental guy taking up half the elevator—don't seem to phase him and either this dude's seen a lot of weird shit in his life, or this Vala chick is batshit crazy too.

The guy crunches at his hips, his hands clasped behind his back, and slowly lowers his head until they have the same eyelevel. His eyes narrow and with a whisper that still sounds like a clap of thunder, he questions, "does this have to do with what you disclosed to me confidentially while inebriated?"

"What? No." Tries to return to his wife—his very leaky, slightly crazy, almost motor function deficient wife— "She's just a little hot and we want to go to the—"

When he tries to slip an arm around her, her hand launches up from her side clamping around his wrist, holding it in place, and her eyes are wild, jumping, dangerous, scared. "Crichton, promise me."

He's not going to let her die.

She's not going to die because this is the third time something like this has happened and all it takes is a nice cool place to take the edge off. Touches his free hand to her cheek, staring into her delirious eyes, and knows he's got to be the Bonnie again.

For her sake.

"Look, I'm not Colonel Mitchell, she's not Vala." The Big Guy opens his mouth, but he shakes his head. "I don't have time to get into it right now, but she really needs to get somewhere cold. Just help her and I promise we'll cooperate."

The Bug Guy presses a button on the elevator and arches an eyebrow at him. "Indeed."

* * *

They spent the next three hours staring at the long-range communication device trying to figure out where the stones went. He poked the indented grooves, Vala bounced the baby on her hip, and Chiana explained to him several times how the machine was purchased at a second-hand hut at a trading post. He rested his chin in his hand, staring—then glaring—at the device until Chiana bumped the table and it tottered while the baby blew up again.

The baby was restless. They were restless and decided to turn in.

If he only knew what that fully meant.

"This is it." His chin juts out while he stares at a tiny bed and a tinier cradle.

"That's it." Chiana happily grins, maneuvering on the pads of her feet around the room to Vala who is lowering the baby into the bassinet. "They put him there sometimes, but that usually doesn't keep him quiet."

Vala tucks a ratty old blanket up around the kid, who is already starting to go weepy-eyed again. "Where does he sleep then."

"With them usually."

His stance doesn't change, but he breaks his glare to witness a snapshot of Vala tickling at the baby's toes and pulling a bright grin at the kid. He turns back before she notices, playing off his own grin as a smirk. "I'm still not sure I understand where they sleep."

"Right there."

"That's a bed."

"Yes."

Vala pops up beside him, fixing the loose collar of her shirt. It immediately slides back down. Her eyebrows knit with worry as she examines the bed for the first time. "Is it possible to add another bed to this room?"

Chiana stops filing through what he can only assume are personal items and steps down from a chair. "that is two beds."

"Oh." Vala pouts. And he might notice her lips for the first time. Shining in the low light until her head cranes back, addressing Chiana, who is now tossing clothing into piles on the floor. "Is it possible to add a third?"

"Before they shared this room, did Crichton and Officer Sun—"

"It's Sun," They both correct him while Vala gravitates to the clothing pile in the middle of the room.

"Whatever." Stretches his neck and finds the baby actually asleep, so he lowers his voice. "Did they have separate rooms before?"

"Yep." Chiana nods and hands Vala a white shirt and some other unidentifiable black clothing. "On different levels too."

Vala holds the clothing against her front and nods, then turns to him for approval, that big, wide grin plastered to her face. She's adorable. They're both adorable in an innocent but mischievous kind of way. He doesn't think he's ever seen her mesh this well with anyone but Jackson. So instead of picking out all the reasons why clothing isn't the biggest priority right now, he says nothing but gives her a thumbs up and a nod.

She practically vibrates with excitement and he doesn't think his opinion ever mattered this much to anyone before.

"Alright." Drops his thumb and points an index finger at both. "Chiana, can you take Vala to Officer Sun's—"

"Sun." Both cut him off again.

"Take her to her old room."

"Fine." Chiana leans forward, her body almost snapped in half, and smacks Vala's scuffed boot. "I'll show you where the refresher is too."

"Brilliant. Perhaps you could also show me where the facilities are—"

He steps in before they can get too carried away with what might be the equivalent of an intergalactic sleepover. "Just make sure you come back for the baby."

"What?" Vala stops just before the door, clothes spilling over one arm as the other tugs and loosens her pigtails.

"The kid." He tries not to get distracted by the way her fingers brush through her hair, jutting a thumb back to the sleeping baby that obviously plays favorites. "You got to take him."

Chiana's expression sours, "he sleeps with his parents."

"Not. You." Curls his fingers in the air because, it is too late or too early for the who's on first act again. "Vala, he needs to go with you."

"Why?" She sounds almost offended.

"Because—" it's said through terse teeth "—you're his—"

"I'm as related to him as you are."

"Yeah, but—"

"But what?"

"You know—" she shakes her head, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to elaborate and he's got a bad feeling about this "—he's a baby, you're the—"

"Oh, my dear Colonel." She's full out offended now. "Please do not tell me you're suggesting I take the infant that is not biologically related to me simply because I'm a woman."

"I—"

"I cannot believe that living on your planet has tainted your thoughts with such—"

"Dren?" Chiana chimes in.

He holds his hand against his forehead because now this all seems like a really bad fever dream and he's going to wake up in quarantine with Lam telling him to stop drinking off-world water. "I just meant you're better with him."

His compliment goes in disguise as another insult. "I am not!"

"I meant that he just likes you more."

Chiana sort of growls playfully as she takes a step forward. "The only reason the gnarl likes Aeryn more is because she actually spends time with him."

"I've been caring for him for the better part of four hours." Vala hikes up the bundle of clothing in her arms and sort of sashays to the door, Chiana following her. Before the door closes, he hears her add, "this is perfect not-father, not-son bonding time."

And before he can even understand what the hell just happened, he's standing in the middle of the room, clothing still all over the floor, with a bed his legs are going to hang off of, and a baby, that's not his, staring up at him.

Deke gurgles, a wad of spit forming at the side of his mouth, and blue eyes wide, expressive in worry.

"Yeah kid. I don't know what the hell to do with her either." He sits on the side of the bed and it feels like it's made of pure metal, and then tries to rationalize why he wanted to check out Vala's ass as she left. "But she sure looks cute when she pouts."

And that's when Deke starts crying.

* * *

It has to be hours later when he finds his way down to her room, a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders as he wanders through dark, dank hallways. It's only by happenstance that Chiana pounces out in front of him.

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"Don't you?"

"What are you doing?"

"Chasing ghosts." She wears a coy half-grin and he can't tell if she's lying or telling him the truth. Either way it's disturbing.

"Well, as much as I would like to unpack that happy sentence, can you just tell me where Vala is so maybe we can get this kid to settle down and get some sleep?"

An entertained mewl excites her mouth, and now her smile is all cheeky. "Crichton never could stay away from her for long."

"We're not them." It's not a growl or a grumble but a deadpan statement because they don't belong on this ship, or in this galaxy, or together. It was all a matter of coincidence, and just because she has pretty hair and what he bets are soft lips, doesn't mean anything.

His grandma always said to never mistake coincidences for miracles.

"In one major way, no." She spins and starts to creep down another hallway, her cat eyes glowing in the darkness of the bulkheads. "In a lot of little ways, yes."

* * *

The room is dark, but there's a bronze undertone from the ship's walls, or skin. The idea of being in something that's alive is hard to understand, so he focuses on other things instead, like getting himself and Vala back to the SGC safely or trying to somehow quiet the screaming kid in his arms.

Neither of his nephews cried this much in the first ten years of their lives.

She's dead asleep on another one of those weird metallic beds, but half of her body is hanging off the far edge, her hair's all over the place, and the burst of white skin on her bare shoulder distracts him for a minute.

"Vala," he whispers and doesn't know why because he can't hear himself. He has no clue how she's still asleep with the baby hollering the way it is.

He takes another step forward, shifting Deke in his arms, getting glob of spit across his shoulder, and a close up of a wide, gummy mouth. Stops about a foot from her face, but her expression doesn't change. She's playing dead, has to be because she doesn't want to take care of the damn kid when she's obviously better at it—for no certain reason.

There's no twitch in either of her eyelids, or of her fingers and when he ducks closer, she still doesn't move.

Is she even breathing?

What if the teleportation had some adverse effect because this is her third galaxy and what if—he tucks the baby against his chest and shoots out an arm to her bare shoulder finding it icy and giving her a rough shake.

Her eyes fling open and she pushes him away with surprising ease, the whites of her eyes as identifiable in the warm darkness as the skin on her shoulder. She rubs where his hand was, blinking away the sleep, and strands of hair, folded over in tossing and turning, wave over her head. "Mitchell, what the hell?"

"I'm sorry," he apologizes, holding out the baby, who is worming, rallying his hands in the air and kicking his feet loose of the thin blanket. "But it's been hours and he hasn't stopped crying."

"Hours?" Her sleep heavy mind must warp her senses because she accepts Deke without argument, twisting the kid against her so he faces out again. Her eyes are barely open, and she huffs a strand of hair away from her face as she glances at something on the wall. "It's been twenty-three minutes."

Finds himself just staring at how her eyelashes fan, how the baby tucks back into her even though he's still crying, just how she's sitting on the bed, fur blanket tumbling off her. "What?"

"Chiana taught me how to use their time measuring system." Cradling the baby, she points across the room to a device. "I glanced to it just before I fell asleep. It's been twenty-three minutes."

"Well, maybe he just wanted—"

"I'm not his mother."

"And I'm not his dad, but there's no denying he feels more comfortable with you."

She cocks an eyebrow at him, settling Deke against her shoulder. When she bounces him, it only makes small intervals of gasping between his cries. "Perhaps he's not the only one who feels more comfortable with me."

"What do you mean?"

When it becomes clear that the kid isn't going to stop crying, she shifts on the bed, pulling the fur blanket away from the base of the bed. Her fingers pluck until the blanket around Deke comes loose, and she side-eyes him with a coy grin. "Darling, it took you twenty-three minutes to come seek me out."

"Yeah." Crosses his arms and raises a brow, matching her game. "Because the kid was crying, and I didn't know what—"

"Did you even bother to check to see if—" when she leans over to see if Deke still smells baby fresh, the blanket falls off her lap in a clump and her legs are bare. She has bare legs. They're bare and milky white even in the bronze undertone of the room.

"Vala." He snatches the blanket off the ground and tosses it back into her lap.

"What?"

"What do you mean 'what'?" She pauses swaddling the baby, and his chubby little legs bicycle through the air. When she doesn't even bother giving him an arched eyebrow, he feels the need to clarify, "You thought that would be appropriate attire for the first night on a strange—"

Her raspy chuckle interrupts him, her fingers guiding down one of Deke's arms, and then the other, to be pinned against his chest. "Please do not tell me you're aroused by my current position, Mitchell."

"I'm not."

He is.

Can feel the hotness of the flush creeping into his cheeks. Deke's arm escapes and she tucks it back under again, only giving him an all-knowing smirk and an almost eyeroll.

"I'm not," restates, marching closer to her, but away from the blanketed end. "I'm just thinking it might not be the best idea to be running around in your skivvies—"

"I'm wearing panties—"

"Don't—Say that word."

She chuckles again, flipping the now burritoed baby up to rest his chin on her shoulder. He's stopped crying and his eyes are starting to close. "Panties?"

"Don't."

"Panties."

"Vala—"

"Well, perhaps if you removed yours from chafing sensitive areas of your own anatomy—"

"Stop."

"—you'd have more fun."

"I don't need more fun."

"On the contrary, my dear antiquated Colonel, rules aren't fun."

"They are if you're making them." He's staring at the blanket now, at what's underneath the blanket, what he knows it there. Long, pale legs that must be cold because before he rushed to cover them, he saw goosebumps on her skin. Turns before he can give it another unhealthy thought, intent on getting back to his room and alone. "I'll drop by here in the morning to—"

"Oh no." When he doesn't stop marching to the door, she flings the blanket off her, scurrying after him. "No. No. No. Mitchell, we are in this together, and if we need to sleep and care for this child, we will be doing it together."

She's got him pinned because she's not wearing any pants and the second he gets caught checking her out, he's screwed. So his eyes stick to the ceiling. "Fine. Just—go put on pants or something."

"I'll go back under the blanket."

"Oh no you won't. If I'm staying here—"

"It's not like you'll actually fit on the bed."

Again, another great point by his pantsless teammate. So he sits on the ground beside the bed, his head leaning back into the edge, intent on staying with her until she falls asleep and then fleeing back to the safety and weird bed in his own room.

When he glances up at her, she pulls a tight, tired smile, and slides down so her head rests just a few inches behind his on a curve of the bed, nestling Deke into the curve of her chest, and wrapping an arm protectively around him. Just before his eyes fall closed listening to the hums and groans of a living ship, she drops a second blanket into his lap. "In case you'd like to take your pants off, Darling."


	6. Forfeit

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 6

Forfeit

here is a strange hum when she wakes. Moya tends to make different noises depending on the areas of space in which she travels, particularly ones with higher pressure or more stars and systems. Doesn't open her eyes, only listens to what sounds like the constant hum of a motor. Does not chance a movement because Deke is being silent, perhaps having fallen asleep—but when she sweeps her hand softly across the bed, she finds no evidence of her son, and at that her body bolts upwards.

"Easy Baby." Crichton's hand lands on a blanket pulled up around her bare thigh. She's wearing shorts, military shorts from an Earth installation. They're in mountain. She was suffering from heat delirium.

Her son is gone.

"Deke?" Doesn't condone the wildness etched into her voice, the unwavering pitch as she cranes her head around the room, trying to spot her child, the one with tiny fingers that curl around her own, who carries her eyes that are always free to be full of tears, and who may have her aversion to heat. Turns to Crichton, her hand falling on his forearm and allowing the unconcealed concern in her voice to adopt some hope. "Did we—?"

The calm smile slips from his face and he simply shakes his head at her. Wants to ask him if he even bothered to look, if he remembered he had a son without her conscious enough to remind him. But his hand scoops hers up, holding it tender in his own before and placing a kiss over her knuckles.

Takes relief in his proximity as he pillows her hand between his, tucking it beneath his chin, and tries not to dwell on the fact that this relaxation is the result of the complete trust of another being. Her cold skin warms between his hands, her arm peppered by his exhalations. She closes her eyes, the headache lingering from the sudden change of temperature. "What happened?"

"Well." Shifts their hands to before his mouth, his words heating her skin as the tips of her fingers trace over his lips. "I met the biggest human-looking guy I've ever seen. He might have been a human, but he looked more like a Mac truck and I sort of made a deal with him."

Her hand stiffens within his, and when she tries to tug away, he holds on. "What deal, Crichton?"

"We can talk about it later."

Reclaims her hand, using it to push against the brown boxes beneath the blanket wrapped around her. The cold is no longer soothing and despite the irate emotions coursing through her, she finds herself lethargic, her concentration waning. "What did you offer?"

"You're going to get upset and you need to relax—" Tries to guide her back into a laying position, but at this point if she falls back into sleep, she'll be hard to rouse.

"I'm already upset," speaks from between gritted and chattering teeth.

He unzips the plush jacket he's wearing, it very thick and smooth with a fur trimmed collar. "I told them we'd work with them."

Doesn't offer him a remark because this is how it always ends up. He caves when someone he loves is threatened and she has to come to terms with the fact that it's usually her that's threatened, or the son she birthed.

Fingers tickle at her wrist, as her posture becomes precarious on the closing of her eyes.

"Aeryn."

On his beckoning, he draws her inwards to the body heat pouring out of his open jacket zipper.

"I'm cold."

"I know."

"Where are we?"

"You were hard into the heat delirium, so the Big Guy brought us to the closest, coldest room." His hand slaps down onto one of the cardboard boxes beneath her, slipping between the slatted top, and pulling out a bag full of frozen foodstuffs. "This is a freezer."

"Do you truly believe that they will help us return to Deke?"

He guides her hands to loop around his waist, and a shiver runs through her at the welcoming furnace of heat hidden at the small of his back. "Despite everything they've done so far, I don't think that they mean us any harm."

More awake now, but more relaxed, visualizing his words, his plans that sit in constant failure. "They promised to do what they can about the heat—and honestly—" The weight of his head cushions on top of hers, feels the muscles in his jaw stretch and snap as he speaks, his hands over the bare skin on her back, fingers in her hair. "I think they just want their people back safe."

Three solar days ago she sat on the edge of the tottering table in command, Deke lay cradled in her arms as she tries to feed him a pouch of the Peacekeeper infant formula. John hates the smell and texture of the viscous green sludge, his eloquent description of the minerals keeping their son alive. It was Deke's feeding time and he refused to feed, only cried misery with despondent eyes lined with thick lashes, all things she made and protected and nourished within her, actions she never intended to do, actions that once brought her shame instead of pride.

Attempted to distract herself from the nascent frustrations growing within her, a squalling infant, less than an arn of sleep, the worry of where to get the next meal, and which Diagnosians to trust as despite the peace treaty, despite the wormhole generated from her husband's mind, Scarrens and Peacekeepers alike still viewed them as a threat. Both honored the agreement, and Moya traveled safely though enemy territories until able to starburst, but the radio silence on both sides only served to stoke her concern.

Her mind exhausted and racing, her arm giving a gentle bob to her son to calm him, her voice whispering words in Sebacean, words she wished Xalax had whispered to her, sacred promises which she vowed to keep, she dipped her head, resting it against the one she created, and sighed in his scent, one she could track through the wilderness on any planet, only to have him reach and grasp her hair.

Her emotion became his emotion as she grinned at him, and he gurgled back, eyes bright and clear, and just a slight tug at his lips. John explained it was generally unheard of for a human child of only thirty solar days to have such motor skills, but it is quite common among Peacekeeper children, especially those reared upon a craft.

But she knew this action, from her son to her, was on purpose, was a reaction to her fatigue, her surrender. Knew that this was a priceless reward and when Deke still refused the food, still wailed arns on end, she remembered his fat hand in her hair, just like his father's, and knew to be patient.

"John."

"Yeah?"

"I want our son back."

"Then let's go get him."

* * *

The truce John struck up with the military offers them benefits, too many benefits to simply sit back and appreciate without the lingering suspicion that eventually these benefits will have to be reciprocated.

The doctor from before and several guards, she counts five, but keeps her head low, lest her counting be discovered, escort them back to their room. A different room this time, situated in the middle of the complex. It's more spacious offering a bedroom separate from a communal living area, and a bathroom equipped with a soaking tub.

"Why would they give us this?" Her finger grazes over the enameled surface of the rectangle basin sunken and tiled into the floor. In its opulence she presumes there's a more utilitarian usage.

"Because I asked for it." He tugs out the drawers in the bathroom counter, taking stock of what was given to them. Preoccupied with simple toiletries that he took to during their last visit on a different but eerily similar Earth.

She doesn't have the patience for his antics, despite being relocated several levels, the complex still radiates heat from within the walls, and while she's not at a high enough temperature to be in medical danger, it's high enough that she's permanently unwell.

From the bathroom, the white luminescent panels on the walls and floors contrasting with the drab boulder exterior of the bedroom and living quarters, he shouts, "don't you want to know why?"

"I've given up wanting to know why you do half the dren you do." Sits atop the arm of the couch, the leather is cool, but it sweats as she does, permanently, ceaselessly. She collects her hair, ratty and dry from the few arns spent in the refrigeration unit but finds that her tie has been mislaid from her wrist. All she can do is blink her eyes closed and sigh.

A solar day ago her son was with her, she was in a room where the temperature was moderated to her liking, she was tired, and concerned, but less so that she is now. Her body adapts, it was created to adapt, to deal with harsh environments, to be pushed to extremes and then exceedingly further, to carry a hybrid offspring safely for double the gestation period. But for the first time, she fears adapting here, fears their residency becoming permanent. Fears not feeling the hold of a tiny little hand in her hair again.

Her hair is again collected, his fingers combing through to keep some semblance of a military exterior, twisting until her neck is bared and a messy ball of hair sticks out the back of her head. She vacillates between finding the same solace she did in his body warmth, the idea that he knows of her weaknesses and ensures there are routes around them and being inherently vexed that the bun on her head is now too tight, and too messy to be of use.

His lips press behind her ear, warm and wet, and when he speaks, he nuzzles into her neck. In the midst of constantly sweating, it induces a shudder. "I asked for it for you."

"For me?" Cranes her head back, her nose brushing his cheek, smelling his perspiration, seeing the same glint on his skin.

"In case you can't handle the heat, we can fill it with ice and let you marinate a bit." His thumb traces the angle of her chin, his words parsing slower. "Can't always be contaminating the frozen food section."

Allows his hands to worm their way around her ribs, resting underneath her breasts, his exhalations are hot, but warranted. Normally would deny the idea of recreation during such a time, but she feels unmoored, on edge and perhaps the reduction of fluid levels would deliver her the calm the temperature simply will not.

The kiss is not lacking, his dry lips pulling against hers, willing her to open, to fall backward over the arm of the couch, reclining, accepting him on top of her. Normally, they fight for supremacy, their recreating boiling down to half pleasure, half sparring, seeing who will take the reigns and who will submit. On this world, in this universe, her responsibilities are numerous and overflowing. Needing to dominate him now will be one other task she must complete, so she remains reactive beneath him.

His hand slides over her stomach to her bra, similar in style to the one worn by Peacekeeper soldiers, a simple pliable black material, and his lips course over her neck, elongated for him as she bows her body back. Tugs at her bun, releasing her hair into his fingers once again, and if she wasn't preoccupied with his hips rutting against hers, she would tell him what a frelling waste of time it was to put it up.

But instead he sucks on her shoulder, his hand strumming her breasts over the fabric, and her hands dig underneath the band of his pants, sliding along the ridge of his—

The door to their room hisses open.

As John scrambles off her, the swiftness of his movements stunted by his obvious arousal, she identifies the contour of the doctor standing within the archway.

"Is it that doctor guy? Tell me it's not that—"

"Sorry to interrupt." The doctor is a vibrant shade of red, his face angled towards the corner of the ceiling, refusing to make eye contact or other acknowledgement—Peacekeepers would describe this tactic as submissive and weak as direct eye contact can insight aggression. "But we need you two to take a look at the long-range communication device."

She doesn't answer him because she's still not trusting of this truce. John's jaw clicks into place, tense and tight, with his narrowed eyes, direct and aggressive. "You are just the worst."

The doctor purses his lips and give a single nod of acknowledgement, his eyes flitting to her and lingering. "I'll be waiting outside."

* * *

She wakes up almost completely frozen, her legs still tucked under the end of a heavy fur throw, but her bare shoulder practically sporting a layer of frost. Her teeth chatter as she pushes herself into a sitting position, placing herself in the right scene. On that ship, that living ship with a name that escapes her, with Mitchell still nestled at the side of her risen bed. Grins at his deep sleeping form, and the heavy snore pouring from his mouth, would have wagered that he be gone when she woke up, scurrying back to his room, and the bigger bed, leaving her on parenting duty.

The child still sleeps, a son she never birthed but has taken to her and she cannot embrace it because he is not hers. He may have her eyes, reminiscent of her most broken days holed up in a sandy-bottomed prison before the Tok'ra took pity on her, but he is not her son. Gently, she lowers him over the side of the bed, making a nest for him from the throw no longer warming her legs. Her pants, the ones she arrived in, are covered in a bit of spit up, and a little of something else from a diaper change gone awry. One that Mitchell slept through or else he has wonderful acting skills.

It's only been about four hours since he plodded in here last night holding the baby at arms length and she's unsure if his avoidance of the child is for her own same reasoning, trying not to see himself in a human being who means nothing, who should mean nothing, but stirs up envy and bad memories like ocean detritus.

A shower would be best.

A shower always helps, and Chiana was kind enough to show here where the facilities were. She grabs a makeshift outfit from the pile of clothes pilfered from the other room and pads her way down the bronze-hued halls until slipping into the closest communal shower. There are towels, hanging off a wall to use afterwards, and her hand slides over what should be the dial, trying to rummage through the operational instructions she was told after intergalactic jetlag and four hours of baby duty.

The water, well it's not exactly water and she really doesn't want to know what it is, is hot, hotter than her normal showers after off-world missions with mud caked into personal crevices, or after a tumble with a strapping soldier who followed her winks. She cleans, trying not to compare the shower to all the others she has experienced in her lifetime. Qetesh had a proclivity for hot springs, oblong baths with warbling bubbles that made her skin flush red without arousal. The showers on Ver Isca were a basin filled with heated water and were a treat to her only once a week.

With the suds rinsed from her hair, she rings it out, watching the liquid drip and run down the slanted floor to the drain. She runs a towel over her hair to catch any lingering wetness. Another towel wrapped around her as she approaches the bench in which she's laid out her clothes, well not her clothes, other hers clothes. A white top, leather pants, and suspenders. The undergarments are more rudimentary black and white and made of stretchy nylon or a similar material. Nothing flashy or lacey or sensual, garments used for basic needs. Misses her frills, her bows, her lace. Pink with brown stripes and all the trimmings that men love to fuss over, like unwrapping a gift. Has to keep it interesting because after three years stuck in the same mountain, sex with an alien isn't exactly the draw it once was.

There's a noise outside the doorway, and she assumes it's Mitchell panicking while being left alone with a child he was all for adopting before he knew it was his, well not his, but alternate his. She rolls her eyes because men, nothing scares them more than sexually progressive women or babies. Qetesh ruled entire Jaffa armies while wearing next to nothing, pushed herself on men until they quaked in her presence, championed men in the battlefield and in bed, and all because her strength, her confidence, loomed over their own.

Is unsure why babies and the birthing process frightens men so much, she was on path to work as a midwife before being hijacked by Qetesh, and there's nothing more natural. Perhaps it's the time discrepancy or the bodily fluids or one of so many other reasons. Would frequently tell Tomin of her changing body, her weakening bladder, milk laden breasts, the marks cut across her stomach from lack of give in her skin, and he would silence her and tell her it was inappropriate talk.

Tugs on the panties to below her hips, her fingers sliding over the craggy white scars still carved into her skin from a baby that was never her own. Pulls on the bra adjusting herself accordingly and finding it a bit of a tight fit. Knows her counterpart has had a baby and can only guess this garment was from before that time.

Pulls on the loose-fitting white top, and yanks on the leather pants which she doesn't care for, but there's not much in the way of alternate clothing. Digging through that pile, the majority was black and leather. No frills, no bows, no pop of color. Fits the suspenders over her shoulders and finds them relatively useless, the pants fit fine, particularly in the hips, and her hypothesis of this being an older outfit is proving itself truer and truer.

Slides her feet back onto her combat boots and imagines her counterpart, Officer Sun, doing the same back on base. Perusing her limited wardrobe of three shirts and one pair of pants, and no boots now because she took them. Feels bad leaving her with next to nothing, but perhaps the SGC will treat her a smidge better, offering her other uniforms. Perhaps she'll get the use of the civilian clothing that she hardly ever gets to wear. Hopes she wears the blue frilly shirt, the one that kind of rides up under the arms and works it in for her.

With still moist hair, she opens the shower room door expecting to find an irate Mitchell, which is partly the reason she took her time, but instead finds a new person. A shorter, older woman, about the height of Chiana, with a third eye in the center of her forehead and the biggest ears she's ever seen.

"Oh Aeryn, I wanted to inquire if the food I—made—for—" Her words peter out as the woman stares at her, examining her, perhaps with the third eye. "You're not Aeryn."

"Yes—Yes I am." Bursts by the old lady still sniffing around her like one of those slobbering Tau'ri animals Cameron keeps on his farm, the ones with spastic tails and floppy ears. He named his Misty and said she was a good girl. "I just—the child spat up on me, and when I went to offer him a new diaper, decided to relieve himself on the legs of the pants I pulled back on because that room is so dreadfully cold and—"

When she turns to judge whether her lies are believable, the old woman blows a handful of dust in her face and everything goes black.

* * *

Awakens with heavy cuffs eating up her hands and wrists. They must be magnetized as her arms are pinned above her head, and when she struggles to yank them down, she cannot. As her blurred vision clarifies, she witnesses the old woman puttering around what must be a kitchen, adding bits and bobs to a pot cooking on the stove.

When the old woman turns, catching sight of her conscious, she throws a hand to her chest and releases a weak laugh. "Good, you're awake. I was afraid I'd used too much of the fyang powder. Aeryn requires a high dose and I was unsure to how similar you are."

She swallows, blinking her eyes, her head lowering a bit, the effects of the drugs obviously still present in her system. "I believe we only look similar—"

"—Yes. Yes, outwardly you appear exactly alike, perfect precision in copies, however interiorly you differ vastly, which is how I was able to suss you out." She putters still, extending on the tips of her toes to grab a red piece of twine from a high cabinet and tossing it into the mixture.

"I don't know if Chiana informed you—" The woman doesn't pay attention, throwing three of something into a canister and shaking it like a primitive instrument. It results in high pitched squealing, and the noise gives her a rotten feeling in her tummy. "I mean no harm."

"Yes Dear, I'm quite aware of your benign nature." Sidling up next to the pot, the woman dumps the content of the shaker into the boiling water, and the screeches become more potent before dying out.

"Excellent, then perhaps you'd be kind enough to release me?" Shoves her body back into the metal bulkhead, causing a thunking sound from her weight.

"I will do so in just a few microts."

She pouts her lips, now hanging the full weight of her body from her arms, her head difficult to keep up. "I realize you're quite busy creating whatever fantastic concoction you've got brewing, but is there anyway we can expedite my releasing?"

The old woman pours the boiling liquid from the pot filling a small bowl to the brim. Little tendrils of smoke rise from the mixture, bubbles popping, but slowing. "You can be released just as soon as the mixture cools."

"Lovely." While finding this old woman agreeable, the small portion of her that is lucid, warns that perhaps she's too agreeable. "May I ask why?"

"Oh," the woman glances up from where she sweeps a bit of dust off the counter with her hand and pockets it. "Because you need to ingest it."

"Okay." Glances to the bowl that is no longer throwing steam into the air, and she swallows harshly. Is never one to turn down a meal, a good meal, a bad meal, has lived off roots and grubs before she trotted to Earth, all done up in leather gear to hide her boney figure. "Again, may I ask, why?"

The old woman only laughs, collecting reeds strewn around the room and placing them back into a vase. "Because you're all done up."

"I'm aware of that." Eyes roll upwards, witnessing the metal consuming and restricting her hands. Can't hold the pose for long and her head lolls back down. "I'd just assumed you'd done it."

"No. No. No." The old woman tuts with a wag of her finger, just like any village elder, just like any older relative, just like General Landry. She approaches with a smile, but her third eye opens, revealing a bright green glow. "You are empty, and there was no consent given."

"I'm not sure I—"

The woman drifts closer, the eye shine no longer calming, but growing intense, almost radiating heat. "Aeryn's was natural, biological from heritage, from birthright."

"All right. Perhaps you should go get—"

"Yours is unnatural. Not for betterment. You were kindling, just a sacrifice." The old woman shakes her head, empathising with her over a statement she doesn't understand, a trait she's unsure she actually has. Her eye closes, retreating into furrows on lilac skin, before she turns away, shuffling towards the bowl.

"I'm sorry, I still don't understand." Feels her heart speed up as the old woman clasps the bowl between her two hands, the liquid inside cooling to a thick paste, bright red with frozen ripples. She really doesn't want to ingest the concoction. She has minor food allergies, and her stomach is already roiling from the lack of fresh fruit available. Bartering won't work because she has nothing the woman wants, but perhaps exploiting her good nature, her nonsensical words, will work. "But I don't want to eat that, and if you make me, it will be unnatural and not bettering."

"No, no, no." Tuts again, a mischievous half-grin tugging on her worn lips. "It will better you, it will undo what was done—"

"Well perhaps I don't want—"

The old woman balances the bowl in a single, steady hand, placing a cold palm against her cheek. Her grin turns warm, her eyes as gentle as her touch. "Your body has always been forfeited, Child."

The words strike her harder than any fist ever has, and she manages to hold her head steady enough to stare at this woman, while unpacking such a heavy sentence, one she tries not to admit to herself.

"This mixture will help you reclaim it."

Before she has time to ask another question or even consider drinking a solution she saw made up of screaming nodes and common kitchen rubbish, the woman clamps a hand over her nose, blocking her nostrils, and when she opens her mouth in protest, the bowl tips back against her lips.

The thick, sticky, fowl liquid trips back over her tongue, coating her throat, making it hard of her to breathe, like the time she ordered extra extra cheese on her pizza, against Daniel's behest, and a wad of melted cheese got stuck in her throat until Muscles smacked her back so hard, she saw stars.

Can't breathe, can't cough, and the bowl clatters to the ground as the old woman forces her mouth closed with both cold, thin-skinned hands. Her breaths are staccato against he woman's fingers as she weaves a lullaby of soft, supportive words while keeping her mouth clamped with unbridled strength.

"There, there. Keep it all down." The still warm smile, the still tender hands, and it's oddly familiar. Comforting while being in intense fear caused by said comforter. The holding down, the hair stroking, the Goa'uld burrowing into the back of her neck. Tears prick the corners of her eyes as she shakes her head, flailing her feet, trying to knock the woman away, her throat thick and full, her mouth dry and tasting of refuse. "You must ingest it all of it."

She swallows the lump of what she's trying to trick her brain into thinking is cheese, just as the old woman is flung aside, back against the cabinets, shaking the utensils and cupboard doors. Her head dizzying, white lights, bright colors spackling across her view as she coughs, trying to bring up the mixture that sits hard in her stomach, like swallowing a boulder, but as she hacks, strangles out whooping coughs, her throat remains empty and her stomach full.


	7. Long-term

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 7

Long-Term

The classicist keeps looking at his wife.

Kinda ogling but almost like he's studying her—like he still doesn't believe their story—like maybe this Malcontent chick could be faking being a whole other person.

They're back in the laboratories where they first got dropped off—the side of his face still soft like a tenderized slab of beef—staring at the weird hookah thing they've all seen before and no one is saying anything.

But the hookah isn't what the doctor is staring at.

"So—" stands from where he sits across from Mr. Language Expert, watching the subtle lick of his lips while he watches Aeryn lean in, examining the hookah closer, the way her hair falls, the perfect curve of her—drags his groaning chair across the floor to sit beside Aeryn. Bumps a shoulder against hers and she leans away from the hookah. "This is what you all do all day?"

"Hmm?" The doctor hums, leaning against his hand and finally turning his attention away from Aeryn. "Oh yeah, pretty much."

Before he can pose any thinly veiled threats, the doors slide open and Colonel Carter walks in holding a manila file folder. She grabs the last chair, dragging it to his recently vacant spot. "I need you to tell me everything you know about the long-range communication device."

"Sure, what's a long-range communication device?"

"I'm sorry," the doctor sputters to life like Betty's engine, "but didn't you make a deal with Teal'c that if we helped your wife, you would both help us?"

"Her name is Aeryn." Slams his arm down the table, not jostling the hookah, but everyone in the room except for Aeryn, and maybe a few hidden behind the cameras. "She's in the room, you seem like a nice run-of-the-mill Revenge of the Nerds type guy, so I'll let you in on a secret: she's not your friend—"

"John—" Aeryn's fingers cuff his wrist, and she doesn't understand what's going on here. Or maybe she does and it's just another way she's a better soldier than him. Another way she can keep emotions out of it.

Ignores the doctor's boiling attitude, or the quirked brows Colonel Carter give to them before she distracts herself with shuffling papers. He distracts himself with his wife's, literally, hot body. His hand cups hers as he calms, no longer needing to enter into twelve rounds with a guy who knows what Alexander the Great's undies looked like. "Are still doing okay? Do you want an ice pack or something?"

Doesn't answer, just tugs her hand away, straightens her posture—shoulders back—her PK training still showing.

"Because I made a deal with them—"

"Commander Crichton—"

"So, they have to get you one if you want it."

"Fine. You know what? Don't help us." The good ol' Doc shoves his hands against the table sort of donkey kicking his chair away, growing a bit red in the face. "Just keep messing around, because at the end of the day, you'll still be stuck here."

Well now, that's damn near obvious, but the Doc is trying to pull it off threatening with his cocky Mr. Ed routine. There has to be something going on between him and the woman Aeryn replaced, because he's getting obsessive and defensive—the same way he did before wormholes weapons and midnight feedings.

"Your son will still be somewhere else."

Knows it now because that's taking it too far. There's an intergalactic space rule that threatening someone's kids—if they're not adults—is strictly verboten. Is gonna guess this Earth's exposure to the great vast black is limited and they don't know the etiquette. Is keeping his cool for Aeryn who's giving off heat like a space heater. He tries to pick out the polite way to tell the nerdy military doctor that no one will threaten his kid when Aeryn rises, slowly, purposefully—on the hunt—her chair silent, her arms at her side, and her eyes narrowed to hell. "Do _not_ speak about my son."

While the sort of stare off happens—Aeryn ready to gut this guy with white knuckled balled fists, and the doctor, squinting, looking like he still thinks someone else is in there—Colonel Carter taps the table lightly with her hand. "Okay—" the word has way more than two syllables, but it draws there attention back to her flinch of a grin. "Why don't we get our focus back."

Wants to casually remind that Deke is their son. That it took two of them to make him, and although he may not have actually been there, he kinda was, so it still counts.

Instead he runs a hand through his hair and points to the hookah. "We have one of these long-term—"

"Long-range communication device."

"Yeah, whatever, we thought it was a hookah." Shrugs and waits for good ol' Doc to interrupt him again, but he doesn't. Keeps quiet, but still sneaks looks at Aeryn. "It had two zen stones."

"Zen Stones?" Colonel Carter questions, glancing up from scribbling on the clipboard similar to the one Aeryn beaned her in the head with a day ago. There's still a small cut near her temple.

"Yeah, like the kind you'd find in a koi pond or something."

"We call them long-range communication stones," she nods, scratching down something a bit faster while explaining, but not with full attention, "they allow the users to inhabit a body in a different galaxy."

"Hold the phone, they just let you hijack someone else?"

"Well." Colonel Carter pulls a face again, a long wistful smile, like she's trying to keep her patience while teaching a room full of unruly kindergartners, and giving a quick assessment to his attitude, the doctor's, and Aeryn's lack of any form of communication, she might as well be. "Not so much hijack, as borrow."

"Borrowing—without consent."

"Yes, but—"

"That's hijacking."

"Everyone eventually goes back to their old bodies." The Doc pushes away from the table again—too twitchy to sit still for long—this time a little more eloquent, more like a dressage horse than a donkey. "But that's our problem."

"How is that a problem?"

"Well, you didn't just take over Mitchell and Vala's bodies, you switch places with them entirely."

"That unusual?"

Colonel Carter nods and turns a screen towards him, there's a rate graph and numbers charting along the side. They're measuring something. "We had to gate—destroy the original long-range communication device in order to get Daniel and Vala back safely from another galaxy, but we did manage to recreate the frequency of the device that allowed Vala to inhabit Daniel for a brief period of time from another galaxy."

"This Vala bounces galaxies a lot."

"You have no idea."

"I have an idea why."

"Excuse me?" The Doc huffs and puffs, and not in a way he's seen before, actually getting all riled up and a bit red faced.

Aeryn shoves at his arm and his retort dies in his throat while he tries to regain his balance. "Will you please stop instigating so we can finish this discussion?"

The Doc points a wagging finger at her. "Exactly what language is she speaking?"

"It's not important."

"Well, my specialty is in languages and—"

"If you don't know what she's speaking, then I guess you're not that special—"

"John." Aeryn's voice cuts through their pithy back and forth. Expects that expression she gives him, the one where he knows if it was within her power—hell, it's always within her power—she'd be beating the ever-loving crap out of him for prolonging this. But instead she just looks—tired. Defeated almost, not scared or angry or threatening, just tired.

His hand covers her on the table top. She's still really warm, not warm enough to confuse elevators with elephants, but warm enough that he thinks she'll be spending at least an hour in the bath that he pulled strings—he begged like a dog—to get. "Sorry Baby."

The room is quiet for a stitch except for the humming of whatever dampener they have for the long-term hookah machine.

Colonel Carter clears her throat, setting down the clipboard and leaning into the table. "I think that having the device here when we have a fabricated frequency might have upset the balance. The stones could still do their jobs, but our man-made stone acted as a barrier."

"Can't you just take it down?"

"If we did that, we might lose our pinpoint in the galaxy all together."

"Okay, so don't do that—" scratches his head and tries to remember the hookah, the stones were smooth, and he thought they needed glue. They glowed blue and Deke liked them, finally quieted down. He was running. "You don't have any stones for it?"

"No." The Doc shakes his head and crouches on the edge of the table. It was found without them."

"So, we have no way of getting back?" Squeezes his hand over Aeryn's when he feels her tense up. She's staring at the hookah and he's going to have to talk with her about participation points.

"No." Colonel Carter's ever-present grin disappears, but he can see the dot dot dots forming in her pulled expression. "There is a possibility, we would just need to either create or find two more stones."

"You would also need to remember which slot your stones went into in order to ensure transfer to the right galaxy." The Doc shrugs, the skin on his face very tight and his eyes tiny behind his glasses as he drags them away from Aeryn. He clears his throat, trying for a smooth recovery. "But that can be done through trial and error."

"So, you understand why it's so important we know everything you know about the stones." The words sound more like a plea as Colonel Carter leans across the table, her arm reaching for Aeryn again, extending like an olive branch—one they're still hesitant to accept.

"We spent less than five microts with—"

"Our son liked them. They soothed him." Aeryn stands, more graceful than before, strong on her own legs and circles around the table, finally deciding it's her turn for show and tell as she ignores everyone, focusing on the hookah.

"He reached for one, and they toppled loose." She leans over the table, between him and the Doc and they both watch her the same way, with the same hungry eyes. She points to a certain area of dips, of the slots where the stones fit in "From here."

"You can't possibly rememb—" The Doc stops his skepticism for once, closing his mouth when she snaps her head to him.

"There are subtle shifts in design." Her voice terse and tired, the kind he wakes to in the middle of the night when she's talking to Deke, saying things that don't translate too well because apparently, Sebacean is a very literal language. "The symbols are not as bright in this section."

That gets their attention. Colonel Carter drops her pen, leaning into inspect a device she's probably examined for hours. The Doc hops off the table, tugging his glasses off and staring like he did once at a sink on Moya. "What—what symbols?"

They really are deficient.

"The ones right—" as Aeryn's finger touches the surface of the hookah, the humming of the dampener increases to a high-pitched scream and before he can ask what the hell is going on, another large pinch of electricity surges through his body, and he blacks out.

* * *

Doesn't know what time it is when he wakes up because Vala never bothered to share how to work the damn clocks with him. It's still dark in the room. It's probably always going to be dark in the room, and what he wouldn't give to walk outside the mountain and feel the fresh Colorado air hitting him in the face, whip on a pair of sunglasses, and hop in his mustang for a weekend away.

Had a weekend away planned with Amy. It's been planned for a while, but he keeps having to postpone it because stuff like this keeps happening—maybe not as bad as this, but bad enough that he's got to suit up and march through the gate.

So instead he deals with hip and lower back pain from falling asleep against the bed for however long he did.

Part of him is glad the kid is out, and that Vala's still asleep, because now is his time to sneak back to his room. Brought the baby down last night under a different guise—sure, he would've been more than happy to pawn off the kid—who's not his and he can't see a hair or freckle reminiscent of his own faded baby photos from his parents' farmhouse walls—but he was more concerned about her. The longer he laid in that bed alone, the more he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen to her. She almost tumbled off that skywalk twice, and if she gets excited and starts exploring without him—

Played his part, huffed and rolled his eyes, which are always directed at the ceiling now because she has a penchant for flouncing around in Daisy Dukes and Qetesh dresses, and pretended to be annoyed that he had to stay with her, while happily sleeping like a guard dog at the base of the bed.

But when he turns to make sure she's still out before he leaves, she's gone. If his back didn't hurt so much he would kick his own ass.

The kid is nestled next to him in a fluffy pile of blankets, the one she had over her legs, her bare legs that—nope.

No.

Doesn't know what it is about this place, but it's making him think dirty thoughts, or admit to it at least. He's a guy, he's thought about it before, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Being worried that she's going to take a swan dive off an elevated walkway is okay, remembering the tickling of her fingers against the material on his fatigues as she unconsciously played with his collar as she slept, is not.

Hikes the kid up and is relieved when he doesn't immediately start crying again.

He barely gets a chance to wipe a hand over his stinging eyes before the door opens to the hallway with Chiana on the other side.

"I figured you two wouldn't be getting that much sleep." Her laugh would be almost innocent if it didn't follow the insinuation. She blinks to accentuate her suggestion and keeps a wide grin.

"Yeah, the screaming baby really set the mood," yawns as he passes by her, enjoying the kid now that he's silent, all curled up and warm. Doesn't know the last time anyone changed him or fed him, but he'll be damned if he's going to try. Let sleeping babies lay.

"If—if you want, I can take him for you." She sort of prowls alongside him, cat eyes fixated on his face and he never thought about how weird it must be for them. To have someone who looks exactly like their friend but isn't. He's dealt with clone type things before, and Vala-as-Daniel, but never the direct removal and complete replacement of a companion.

"Look I understand that our doubles here—"

"Crichton and Aeryn."

"Yeah, them, that they had a great thing going and what looks to be a wonderful family if you can get passed the constent screaming of their kid, but—" He spins in a connecting corridor, an almost circular room that offers him three different hallways to choose.

Chiana stops behind him, close but not warm, in fact he can't feel any body heat from her at all. "Where are you going?"

"I'm looking for Vala."

"She probably popped into the refresher. Said she wanted to last night but was too tired."

"What the hell is a refresher—" Chiana parts her gray lips to answer and he quickly shuts her up by waving his hand "—I don't want to know."

"You're gonna want to know eventually."

"Can you just tell me where the hell—"

"Excuse the interruption." The voice startles him, seemingly drifting through his ears out of no where. Whips his head towards Chiana and it seems to be a normal thing, her attention is paused, her eyes drifting around the hallway.

"What is it, Pilot?"

"If Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell is interested in finding Vala, my DRDs have picked up her presence in the kitchen with Noranti."

"Who's Noranti?"

"Thanks Pilot." She nods down the middle hallway, taking a quicker pace to keep up with him. "She's Traskan, an old woman—crazy, but harmless."

* * *

Harmless isn't the word he would use to describe the mad woman.

When they get to the kitchen, he walks in on the old bat force feeding something that looks like a big bowl of taffy to Vala. It takes about a second for him to connect the whimpering noises and the cuffs holding her up before he shoves the baby into Chiana's arms and tackles the grandma.

Issues a mental apology to his own grandma who's probably cussing up a storm, but he's got one team member to look out for and currently he's losing the game.

"Vala—" She can't answer, only gags, trying to cough up whatever this crap is. Tries to yank the cuffs off, but they're really stuck in place and when his fingers falter from the metal, ghosting over her skin, she starts to kick at him. "How do I get these off?"

"I haven't seen those in a while." Chiana lurches forward the baby in her arms suddenly awake and crying up a storm.

"Chiana!"

"It's a number—"

"What's the damn code?" Says it loud enough that there's an actual hiccup in the crying, and Vala stops thrashing beside him.

"I'd—I'd have to see—" Cautiously, Chiana leans in over his shoulder, pressing into the side of him, the kid almost screaming in his ear now, and types the code releasing Vala, who slumps to the floor.

She hacks, her arms a little bruised up from the restraints, and does her best to induce vomiting that won't come. He rubs at her back, not really sure how to handle it—the touching—if she wants touch, the comfort, because there was a wildness in her eyes earlier. One he doesn't want to know about. "You're okay."

"No, I'm not." Her voice is different, darker, vindictive. Swoops up into a sitting position, and whatever was fed to her is drying around the corner of her mouth, her face is wet with sweat, or tears, or spit. "Whatever that woman fed me —" she points to where Chiana is helping the old lady to her feet, the baby squirming and shouting "—is not coming back up."

"But that's good, Dear." The old bat rubs a palm across her third eyelid. "If even a single bit comes back up then it won't work."

"What'd you give her anyway, Wrinkles?"

"Something to make her unempty."

Vala lunges, but she's still kind of out of it. He manages to grab her, not really restraining her, or wanting to. He's the one who sent Granny into the cabinets after all, but they're still on first date basis with the people on this ship and if they want help going home, they're going to have to show a little control.

She wrenches her arms from him, whipping around—he's seen her upset before, crying and trying to hold back the tears from those big gorgeous eyes, he's seen her laugh away nervousness, and shrug off concern. But what he hasn't seen is the glare that almost slices him in half. He's never seen her be serious, never seen her be upset that didn't involve tears.

Holds up his empty hands when he notices hers balled at her side. "Okay. Everyone just—calm down."

"She just force fed me whatever was—"

"I know, Princess, I know, just calm—"

"No. Where were you?"

The insinuation hurts because she's right, he is still technically in charge, although this isn't really a mission—but he went to her last night because there's protection in numbers—went to her under the pretext of a man needing a break from his crying not-son. "I was with the kid. You're the one who—"

"I left because I did the last feeding and change, and got excrement of all kinds on—"

"Then you should've woken—"

"Okay. Okay." Chiana's tone drags out the word as she rubs her way between them, breaking them up. She grabs Vala's hand and smiles until the glare washes from her face. The arm she has wrapped around the kid is elbowing him in the gut, so he moves back out of reach. "Are you two sure you're not Aeryn and Crichton because—"

"Mmm, no." The grandma shakes her head and pulls her fingers back from her mouth, her lips smacking against them. If her skin tone was a little more natural and she wore an Easter bonnet for church service, she might just offer him a macaroon. "As I've stated, this one is quite empty and—"

Vala's tone is murderous, low, almost inaudible. "I. Am not. Empty."

She waits, maybe for him to say something, but this is the first time that he can actually picture her as Qetesh—he doesn't know how to handle this. Thankfully, she only rolls her eyes at him, before stomping out of the room.

Doesn't know if he should just let her blow off steam—should probably leave her to blow off steam—but an unchecked Vala usually evolves into something dramatic and detrimental to everyone—he's had to pull her off the table in the gate room more than a dozen times as she threatens to take people out if they won't let her go.

Maybe he knows more about her than he thinks.

Nods to the kid still actively screaming against Chiana's shoulder. "Will you watch him for a bit?"

Chiana switches the kid to her other shoulder. She nuzzles one of his fat cheeks and then sends a grin to him, sly without the need of bouncing eyebrows. "Go get her, Mitchell."

"I just want to make sure she's okay."

"She'll be fine." The old bat putters around the kitchen, now fixing a meal of some kind, pulling pots and pans from random places, and the smell of burning wafts into his nostrils even though there's nothing on the stove. "There are very minor complications—"

"There better not be anything—"

"I promise you; they will be worth it."

And the smile she gives is like a punch to his gut, like there's something she's not telling him, something he probably doesn't want to know, it's threatening, it's the verbal equivalent to Vala's glare. He takes a step forward, pushing Chiana who tries to hold him back, along with him, and points directly into the old woman's face. "Stay away from her."

"Or course, my dear, my job is already done."

* * *

"Do you want to talk?" Sits with his back to her on their shared mini bed. Her shoulders are still tight and her lips even tighter because she refuses to say a single word to him. Found her in their shared room, the pile of clothing still tossed on the floor, and he doesn't know why she came here instead of being alone.

He's trying to navigate out how to comfort her when she doesn't really accept anything but praise or criticism. Afraid that if he offers her kind words or lets her in on the threat he gave the grandma, she'll make some sort of joke about it.

More afraid that she'll read into this as anything but him as the Team Leader trying to protect what little team he has with him.

"We don't have to talk about—that." Stretches out his thigh, aching a bit, maybe from the pressure, sort of feels the same as when they go for extended missions on the _Odyssey_. "We could talk about—"

How perfect that outfit looks on her, how the suspenders sort of make it, how the only thing he's found to change into is leather pants and a plain black t-shirt that's not going to look as good as anything she puts on, how he's sorry he snapped on her about the device and that she was completely right and if she has any ideas on how to get back, he's open to hearing them, how damn good she is with a kid that's not hers, how he feels something he shouldn't when she's holding that kid and grinning at him and that's the part of this whole mess that scares him the most. "About the stuff you've learned, maybe you can teach me how to tell time?"

"I just want to sleep, Mitchell." Her back is still tense under the outline of her curls, air drying and twisting tighter.

"Fair enough." Doesn't know what to do. To stay and keep watch, to leave and try to investigate the long-range communication device when she knows so much more about it then him. To try and get out of the grandma what she actually did.

Decides that maybe they both need some time apart. That he could explore more of the ship, learn more about the galaxy they're in, ask Chiana more about the stones. His muscles tighten when he stands and the metal skeleton of the bed groans, making her flip towards him, grabbing his shirt.

"Don't—"

Glances down to her fingers stitched into the short sleeve of his air force fatigues, then back at her, expecting her to release him, but she doesn't. "Vala, I could go find out more about the stones, try to get us out of here."

"Yes, that's true—" and her sentence doesn't sound done, her eyes drifting to her feet tucked tightly under a blanket.

"But?" Starts to pry her fingers away from his shirt, they're cold as he gathers them in his palm, before settling her hand back onto the bed.

"I'm just—I don't—that woman—"

"I'll stay." Taps her hand, reaching over and grabbing a blanket from where he threw it on the ground last night in frustration. "I'll stay just until you fall asleep, okay?"

"Just until I fall asleep." She nods, her lips quirking into a small smile, relieved and shimmying back into the bed.

"I'll talk to Chiana about how to lock the doors too." Turns his back to her, burying his one arm underneath his pillow.

Feels her nod into her pillow, the bed shaking unbalanced, creaking until steadying into place. His bad thigh already stretched clear off the side.

"Thank you."


	8. BabelBabble

_A/N: Just a heads up that this chapter deals with women's issues that readers might find squeamish_

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 8

Babel/Babble

There's another hum. The buzz of an annoying insect following her around on another planet she would rather forget.

To have a child.

To not.

The same question droning through her head as she stared at a man she loved more than anything she ever had, a man she gave up all her convictions for the moment they met, a man who wasn't that man at all, but was. He loves her, that is fairly obvious through his extroverted gestures, his fingers itching to touch her, her skin some sort of remedy to him. Through the way his face cracks into one of horror or sadness in times of her duress. How it may remain a stoic mask which is far more alarming.

The white room, how she despises this white room, clarifying in her view. The same table, the same device, but a screen flickering, buttons blinking in distress. Immediately aware Deke is not here, disturbing as part of her just accepts this now. Exhales staring down at the same unspoiled tiles, her fingers fanned out against the mild surface, eyes flitting as they did yesterday, searching for something to latch on to.

"Roo oaky?"

A warm hand curls under her bicep and on instant knows that these are not John's hands. Different callouses, softer skin overall—humans and their inferior biological composition—such a delicate exterior boasting their lack of intergalactic travel.

"Kanu stan?"

Blinks and allows the life she would have allowed herself to slip away again, only to be cultivated in sleepless morning sessions coddling a child who now means more to her than a man she means the world to. Her body evolves from slack to rigid, shoulders clicking into place, elbowing the doctor's knee from beneath him, and his fragile body once again cracks underneath the force of her blow. His left side slumps in his lost balance, his chin barely missing the edge of the very solid table.

Bellows, more in shock than in pain, short but carnal, and when he fully stoops to the floor she towers over him, ignoring the intense ache radiating from her neck, the haze on the outer rim of her vision as she fights to focus, the slight adjustments she needs to apply to her footing to not tip over from the rush of regaining her stance, but most noticeably, the heat. The smoke filtering from machines, accompanying the increase in breathing from three other people turn the air boggy.

Glares down at the doctor cradling his knee as she would her son. Cautiously rubbing his palm over the tendon she more than likely bruised as she calculated her blow to be just shy of dislocating the cap. "Do _not_ touch me."

Surprisingly, the doctor glares back at her over the rim of his spectacles, located near the tip of his nose. Blue eyes piercing through the haze that is very slow to clear. "Saw rhee eye ohn lee whanted 2—"

Angles her head at him, at his unusual words—perhaps a different dialect of English she hasn't encountered before. Distinguishable in syllables, in the basics of sounds, but unable to translate into a direct meaning. Listens as he rambles, still petting his knee, and his lips motor into noise after unknown noise.

"Your prattling is no longer being accepted by the translator microbes."

"Wut?" His eyes narrow at her, his hand stilling on his leg, and the other breaking free to push his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.

"I cannot understand your—"

"Ef yur not gun nuh speak in glass than—"

Observes his discontent momentarily before the familiar call crashes over his words.

"Aeryn."

Bifurcated in the want to roll her eyes, because he does worry entirely too much. She's the one who taught him how to fly a space vessel, she's the one who spent the arns teaching him to fire a pulse pistol, she's the one who birthed and cared for their child while simultaneously caring for herself and his comatose body.

She works in physicalities, while he works in abstracts.

"Aeryn!"

But the concern in his voice is so prevalent it may as well be tangible. Turns from the doctor to witness Colonel Carter helping John to his feet.

"I'm all right, John."

"What?" Squints into the settling haze, his skin growing red from worry. Flinches away from the Colonel when she lays a hand on his back, bringing up a heavy hand to direct his accusations directly to her. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know." The Colonel coughs out, her balled fist drowning the action in her throat, free hand fanning at the remaining smoke, but her eyes scanning the table, the various electronics present which could have caused the upset. "There was a malfuct—"

"What did you do to us?" Emotions too raw for him to attempt his charade of stoicism, instead the unbridled anger seeps through as he steadies himself against the table by pounding a fist into it, demanding attention, draining his rage.

One of the screens scrolls through characters and syntax at a rapid rate, turns bright blue and then promptly turns itself off. The humming of their shield, or whatever they declared the device in the corner to be, is growing again, almost pulsating against the inside of her skull.

This is not coincidental.

"They didn't do anything, John." Ignores the humidity, hot on the back of her neck like the musty breath of upper officers who becomes too informal after a few rounds of ferlip nectar. Instead, picking her way passed the doctor still sprawled on the ground and to the shielding device with rapidly blinking lights.

"Wut'd you sey?"

"This machine is—" groans, flicking her head to the side, at the sharp snap in her head, the device's droning now palpable. "Turn off this machine."

"Aeryn, I dunt understan—"

"This machine is what's disrupting everything. Can't you hear the distressing sound?" All three of the humans stare at her, not exactly open-mawed, but breathing heavily from their mouths. "Can't you feel the vibrations?"

"Baby, your speekin Sebacean."

There's a greater disjoint in the words than she noticed before. Sounds, broken sounds like pieces to a puzzle she has to put together. Like a computer or mathematic equation she has to solve for using a part of her mind that has never been cultivated. "You cannot understand me."

It is not a question, because she knows the answer.

"Why ar you speekin Sebacean?"

Translator microbes utilized to produce a picture, an idea, an emotion at alien words and sounds. Sonant and surd and the language he speaks is punctuated by too many glottal stops, but that is not the issue, the lack of pictures and ideas and emotions are. The base of her skull throbs at the area of her brainstem where the microbes gather rotting.

Connects eyes with him, aware of how difficult it will now be. She visited his home, met his family, ate holiday dinners, and saw pictures of deceased domesticated livestock.

He walked her away from murdering her mother.

She began learning his language.

He did not.

The translator microbes are dead. Does not tell him, or those responsible this, as it's obvious in their lack of shared tongue, their miscommunications no longer the result of his emotions and her actions, of his bumbling and her impenetrability.

The hum evolves into a shriek, slashing through her ear drums, and leadening her head at the base, now a cemetery for hundreds of microbes. Gestures to the machine with a stiff nod, then back to her husband, the father of her only offspring, and although she loves him, sometimes she thinks back to the manner of her rearing, the strict rules by which she was raised and wonders if those rules weren't implemented for a valid reason.

Obvious. This has to be obvious.

"I think our trenzlater mikerobes might be—"

This machine is going to explode very shortly and with it, the beacon anchoring them to this galaxy, the only thing that can possibly reunite her with her son.

Doesn't explain this as she bludgeons the machine with the legs of a very sturdy chair.

* * *

Knows he requested this basin for her. Three empty plastic bags splay across the gleaming white tiles, rivers of water growing over the floor, puddling in the bottom of the cupped plastic. From her basic translations of his overcomplicated native tongue, ice in sacks the size of pillows is readily available at her call.

She only knows because he bothered to share it with her.

Trying to share things with her in a half-spoken language that leaves her half mute isn't exactly relaxing. Attempting to work together while only one of them half understands the other isn't plausible.

Only heard of translator microbes exploding as an outdated form of Peacekeeper torture from a time before her birth, before the regiment of mixed psychological and physical torture was implemented. When prisoners wouldn't answer questions and were deemed a waste of commodities, a recording would play slowly increasing the amount of damage done until the prisoner's brainstem was completely destroyed rendering them a vegetable or dead.

This technique was discontinued as it was deemed too barbaric.

A knock interrupts her thoughts, which are all she has for the moment.

Adjusts her thighs under the water, the fractions of intact ice clink against the side of the porcelain basin. John's head pops around the door, fingers piled over his eyes. "You descent?"

Scrolls through her lexicon, trying to retrieve the information of descent, of where he means for her to go, does he want her to submerge herself under the water? When she doesn't answer after what he judges is an appropriate amount of time, he peeks between his fanned fingers.

"For got you cant really answer." The joviality drops from his face as he walks into the room, not entirely serious, but concerned, as he perches on the edge of the tub. "You feelin better?"

Nods, a human gesture for agreeing. A 'mmhmmm' does the same. There are very basic ways they can still communicate.

"Good." Hand drifts to her hair, done up in an acceptable bun, ribboning loose strands around his fingers. His words require the majority of her concentration. The manual translation, the sifting through hundreds of rhymes and multiple meanings, not to mention insinuations, idioms, and homonyms. "You gotta take it easy."

Take it easy. To do something easier? To snatch something without hurdles?

"Relax," he clarifies as he traces the pensive lines on her face.

She groans, shakes her head, turns away from his touch. Concerned for her while she is present when his concerns should fall on the little one abandoned galaxies away. The one who hasn't gotten translator microbes yet. The one who screams against her chest as she tells him stories she was told as a child through Peacekeeper rearers but changes the ending to hopeful instead of civilizations laying in the wake of war.

"Will be fine." His lips stamp like a hot seal over the exposed skin on her neck.

Wilts her fingers around his neck, his lips preoccupied with another form of nonverbal communication, but her determination is concrete, her goal—reuniting with her son or perishing while trying—is solid, burdening the back of her head, the base of her skull where yet another device has failed her.

The encouragement saps from her fingers as they still, then grow tense against his neck, drawing him away from tracing water droplets from her skin with his tongue. His face falling into one of concern shrouded over the irritation of being halting in his conquests yet again.

"How will we be fine when we cannot understand each other?"

The snug pinch at the corners of his lips slackens in his inability to render her words. Plays cute, trying to charm her with the grin on his face as he shakes his head at her, yet never admits to the fault of not understanding while knowing she is perfectly capable of understanding.

His world, his family, his language, and she assimilated for him. Spoke words soft and malformed from her mouth while reassuring herself it would benefit everyone if she looked human and spoke the language. They would be safer, she would be more easily integrated, and the terror and suspicion that accompanied them to Earth would dissipate leaving her and John safe to raise their family.

That was the original plan, but since he arrived, her plans, no matter their level of practicality, are useless and either interrupted or discarded, barely ever resembling how she envisioned.

The original plan involved a different Crichton, where self-sacrifice was never a concern.

"John." Shakes her head, pushing her gripping hands against the enamel of the tub, sliding the rough pads of her feet over the slick bottom as she stands. The return of heat is immediate, his hand cupped under her arm, helping her stand in a similar fashion to the doctor earlier, but kicking his kneecap out would only be slightly satisfying right now.

He skips across the floor, retrieving a large towel embroidered with his nation's insignia. The fact that she depends on these people—ones who boast so much while having achieved so little—to reunite her with her son is terrifying.

"At least this time you cannot attempt to explain away my apprehensions." Stagnates as he blankets her with the towel, comforting and caring, distracting when she focuses. "You're not even aware of them."

Still doesn't speak, but rubs his hands over the towel creating friction, and with it, heat.

"Were you ever aware of them?"

Her expression sours as she wrenches her eyes closed, turning away. Must understand that much because his hands still. "I sacrificed all I had for you. For our son. And until now have never thought to regret it."

When he leans in to kiss her, she halts him with what she considers a gentle hand against his chest. "I learned your language so I wouldn't be marginalized, and yet everything you do continues to make me feel so."

Amazed that he hasn't spoken yet, that she's captivated him for this length of time without an English interruption or more appearances of roaming hands. Removes the towel because her body is dry, is heating up, and her future is now restricted to meager floors away from this tub.

"I learned your language because I love you, and I knew it would be comforting to have a partner you could converse with."

Pulls on new clothing from an unending stream of donations from their military. Fatigues, pajamas, jumpsuits, all things she cannot wear because the extra insulation would result in her vegetative state. Sticks to workout gear designed to vent body heat, to clothing baring expanses of skin deemed unprofessional by the doctor in the mumbled side conversation she overheard earlier. Cannot speak with them to argue otherwise and instead is left to ruminate in a thin camisole and shorts.

"Both of these things you never offered me."

Must sense the shift in her tone because he sighs, "Aeryn, just use Engl—"

"No John, I'm finished talking."

Switches off the light in the washroom leaving him bathing in the dim glow from over the sink, something he calls a night light. When he thinks she is out of range, possibly forgetting her superior hearing, or perhaps, wanting her to hear his discontentment, he grumbles, "Man, I wish I knew Sebacean."

* * *

The pain was excruciating. Ripped through her torso, up the sides and penetrated between each of her ribs. Mounted at the bottom of her spine in the furrows of her hips, striking down and gripping through her thighs.

And then the pain was gone, and there was crying, but it wasn't her tears any longer, instead belonging to a tiny being she birthed calling out for her. Calling out for sustenance, for comfort, for protection.

But they took her, swaddled the daughter she never saw or held or fed or comforted.

Certainly, never protected.

And the crying and the pain is insistent, a fury of overstimulation through sounds and nerves and—

Awakens with a dizzying headache. Flutters her eyelids open to find a wall, not the stark gray or black or brown of Tau'ri construction materials, but a bronzed metal of a living being. Inhales, her lungs itching for air, as the dream—the nightmare—the memory—undulates over her skin, prickling the hairs to stand on end. The temperature in the room has to be nearing freezing, but when she exhales there are no wisps of air.

As the dulled mute rings out, the baby wails return, and her eyes jolt open. Attempts to sit up but there is a restraint around her ribs.

Warm, heavy, hairy—an arm?

An arm slapped over her torso and angling downwards draped over her hips. His chin digs into the back of her head and somehow, despite having two very small and inadequate pillows, he is now sharing hers.

He's warm and with every other breath he snores.

Might find the domesticity endearing, might wish for a camera to take pictures of her dear Colonel caught in a less than professional setting, but the wailing hasn't ceased. Calmly, directs his hand back to his own hip, and shimmies to roll off the bed, noting the presence of heaviness in her stomach most likely due to the gruel that the horrid old woman force fed her earlier.

In a makeshift bassinet, not more that a smooth box fitted with blankets for comfort, lays the baby. Not her daughter, her adult and now deceased daughter, but the bitty boy with the constant red face. Hands broken free of his swaddled restraints, much like herself, and pumping in the air.

"Oh, dear boy." Keeps her voice soft, lest the Colonel wake up and berate her for whatever reasons he chooses, although, within the last day aboard this ship, his attitude towards her has softened. He did pry that old woman away from her, has offered her more open compliments, and if she didn't know any better, she could swear that she's caught him staring at her in a less than professional manner. Her bare legs, the leather pants, which still pull tight against her abdomen, giving her glances she's seen from some of the other men on the base.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she smiles gentle at the still screaming child, the one she's always afraid to touch because he is not hers, and the more she holds him, the harder it is to discern regardless of the years passed because her body doesn't know the difference.

"You cannot continue to cry constantly." Caresses a finger over his cheek and listens to his little hiccup before sliding her hands beneath him and settling him against her shoulder. He's warm and heavy, signs that he's fighting sleep. Carefully, tucks his hands back into the stained blanket that is somehow still soft. "You're going to run out of tears."

He gurgles, eyes bouncing trying to focus on her face, she directs him back so he has a better view of her. He rewards her with a tug of his lips, a lopsided gummy grin. She laughs, because otherwise the tears in her eyes will fall. "There you are, Darling."

But she settles him against her shoulder again, feeling the steady rise and fall of his tiny chest and the half nuzzle his head as she rocks him, humming half-tunes of children's songs she barely remembers.

Perhaps she was never meant to be a mother, her motives are rather selfish, conning and scheming, then working with the Tau'ri to try to right her ways. Her concern mostly for herself, unless one of her team is involved, but she still steals pretty things, still breaks into restricted areas for play, is still reckless with her life.

Perhaps she was never meant to be a mother, but for the interim of their stay aboard Mayo, she can tend to this boy, reluctantly so if Cameron is present so he doesn't completely pawn the responsibility off onto her.

"Yes." Bounces with the quiet boy, whose red face has diluted to white, as his eyes close and his lips smack. "I think that would be acceptable. Don't y—"

The pain is back.

Sudden and overtaking, shredding through her organs like carnivorous teeth. Flinches forward, the movement stirring the baby, whom she quickly deposits back into his bassinet before smacking a hand to her stomach, the flare of pain swirling and liquid and then a concrete rock that hitches her breath.

And it's so familiar.

Familiar and it shouldn't be because—because the Ori—because her daughter stopped—

Hobbles by the very likely comatose Colonel who now actively snores through his nostrils, breaking free of the room because for as much time as she spent on Earth, this isn't a subject men tend to be privy to, or enjoy discussing without a nose crinkled in disgust.

"Chiana," beckons the gray alien girl she's barely known for two whole days, but somehow her bluntness, her honesty, has labeled her as trustworthy. Perhaps because they're so similar, so unashamed by their sexualities, their natural prowess in the area that makes other blush during meager conversations.

The girl, who seems much younger than she is, not in a naïve or innocent aspect but through conduct, turns when called and a grin tugs on her lips. "If you're here to give me dren for dropping that narl off, you can turn around right now sister because—"

"No. Not about—"Doubles over, the palms of her hands baring into her thighs to ease the pain, the tight muscles, each one streaming from one origin point.

"H-hey." Finds comfort in the gray girl's cold hand against the white shirt she borrowed, the one now covered in sour smelling spit up. "Are you okay?"

"No."

"You want me to go get—"

"No. No," huffs trying to push the words from her throat without a painful throttle. "I need your help."

"Me—what?—" Cat eyes narrow from round surprise and Chiana takes a jump back "—you're not having a narl are you? Because I can't deliver every single—"

"No, nothing like that—while oddly similar I suppose."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm experiencing my moon tides and I need—"

"Moon tides?"

"Do your people not call it that either?" Bites on her lower lip, tries to keep the positive, humourous attitude she's cultivated for situations exactly as these, keep her mind off immanent pain. "The Tau'ri have a distinctively masculine term for it that escapes my mind at the present."

"Look—" Chiana pounces, backwards this time, hands held up in a surrendering gesture. "I don't know anything about—"

"The evacuation point—" Tries to reconstruct herself to stand upright, to have a proper conversation, but feels the beads of sweat dance down her back "—in the reproductive cycle where—"

"Let me stop you right there." The whites of Chiana's eyes almost overpower her perfectly hued face. "I don't know what the frell a 'reproductive cycle' is, but I don't have one."

Silly to think that their bodies ache the same way for the same reason. Chiana is an alien after all, just as she is on Earth. After returning from the Ori galaxy Samantha took her shopping, took her aside and explained about Tau'ri moon tides and birth control—'safe sex' she had called it, which garnered her response of _but then it's no fun_.

"What about Officer Sun?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's asking if Aeryn too experiences a monthly bleed—" That horrid old woman, chewing on some sort of root, creeps out from the shadows wearing the same complacent grin on her face, still deceiving even after their bout in the kitchen "—which she doesn't as she was reared on a command carrier with enhanced genetics, her body always willingly accepts fertilized embryos that remain in stasis until released."

Immediately, she straightens, ignoring how her muscles seize in her back, ignoring the slickness pooling between her legs. She doesn't want to communicate with this woman, who unstitched whatever the Ori sewed shut, but she seems to be the only one with pertinent information. "You knew what you were doing to me."

"Yes."

"What could you possibly gain from—"

"You were made empty before—" the old woman steps closer, her sandaled feet peeking out from beneath the frayed ends of her dress "—now you can be full, if you choose."

"I'm sure you knew this was going to happen."

"Oh yes." The old woman nods with a triumphant smile, perhaps because she's finally understood.

"Then please tell me you have some way to quell—"

The old woman spits the root out onto the floor and raises her finger. "Ah, yes." She tugs up the hem of her dress so she doesn't trip and beckons her to follow down an adjacent hallway. "Crichton brought some useful products back from his trip to Earth."

"Crichton?" She turns to Chiana who follows along beside her, shoulders raised, and head skewed in interest. "I thought Crichton was Mitchell's counterpart?"

They stumble to a stop at inside what looks to be the cargo area of the ship. Large containers line against the walls and spill out into the room creating aisles to travel reminiscent of the coiling hallways deep in the mountain.

Chiana hops up on one, padding across it and sitting on the edge, while the old woman lifts her head to the air and sniffs, before waddling towards a specific container.

"Crichton is a man, but he also gets shot more frequently than anyone else on Moya." The old woman shoves off a large lid that clatters to the ground. Chiana stretches forward, two hands and a foot gripping the container's edge, quiet as she lifts her chin and scans the inside. The old woman digs around until retrieving an open box of tampons, and of all the things she never thought she'd be happy to see, it has to be at the top. "He uses them to stem the wounds."

* * *

 _A/N:_ _I hope no readers felt frustrated at the broken English in Aeryn's part. I wanted to show how her comprehension of the language grew from first hearing Daniel to when she realized her microbes were busted and actively concentrated._


	9. Forbidden Bodies

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 9

Forbidden Bodies

He can't understand his wife.

Feels like he's on some 1950s serial where the guy drops his suitcase and jacket at the door as his doting wife waits with his slippers, the newspaper, and a martini—supper ready in an hour, the kids knowing not to make eye contact.

Let's be honest, he never really understood his wife.

Sure he knows the basics, the glares, the elbowing, the grunts—man, does he have the grunts down—knows why she acts the way she does because he knows all about her Peacekeeper indoctrination.

What he doesn't know is how she's feeling.

How she did feel after the baby, the college cramming style sleepless nights? They never talked about how it felt for her to lose her mother, because, hey, that wasn't with him, so he doesn't have to deal with it—right? It's not that he doesn't care, but by the time she came to him with that baggage, she was already done talking about it, so he left that suitcase right at the front door where it belonged— for her to get rid of.

Maybe this is why the other him was so much better.

She fell for him—from what he can tell, fell for other him pretty hard considering her status as a previously Ludovico'd space fascist who felt weak when she admitted to loving. When she came back she wouldn't look at him, talk with him, acknowledge his existence, until it became necessary for survival.

When Crais and Talyn died, she didn't react—at least not with him—bounced back to sacrifice being natural, that hive mind theory, the deaths piling up behind them necessary for the adventure in front. He never asked how it felt to lose them—a close friend, a surrogate child that she named with honor after another fallen member of her family.

He doesn't ask, and at first he didn't because he was afraid that she would withdraw more from him—that the basic dialogue they'd reconstructed would crumble back to nothing. Then he didn't ask out of habit.

Why she left?

Where she went?

Was she an assassin?

How did Scorpy scoop her up from the middle of nowhere and slap her back onto Moya?

All the questions she refused to answer in full.

Got her back from Katratzi and he asked the same slew of questions.

What happened?

Was she okay?

What did they do to her?—she was tortured, that much he knows, and he hates—but there were higher stakes because the baby—

Jesus, the whole baby thing.

Not telling him.

Not knowing who the daddy is like a year long episode of the Maury Povich show.

To be fair, she never asked him once if he wanted to be the daddy to a kid that might not be his. Even if he was his—and that's another reason he doesn't ask questions because Deke is his flesh and blood, his firstborn, the son that will carry on his name in the universe—or a hyphenated version of it—but he knows that Deke had a different daddy, and as much as he'd argue that point until he's red in the face if someone accused him of it—it's the reason he can't handle the midnight heavy metal screamo sessions with a month old son. The reason he tries to dodge diaper duty and feeding him that gross green sludge from a Capri Sun pack.

Even if Deke is flesh and blood, it's hard to bond with a kid that's not his.

Even if he can see his wife's tired eyes, and his dad's big ears, and his own stupid, lopsided grin when the kid—when his son—actually smiles—it still stings that he wasn't the Crichton to help make him out of love.

All of this Aeryn has figured out and called him on, and he's argued until he was red in the face, until she actually relented from being so exhausted—with stuff maybe or maybe not happening to her body—from the pregnancy, from the hormones—because they only had one quick layover with the Diagnosian, and it was to get Deke inoculated. Didn't even have time for the translator microbes before they had to starburst away, because even after the treaty, the peace hangs heavy like an albatross around Moya's neck.

Translator microbes are a problem now too.

If he didn't know what his wife was feeling before, he sure as hell has no clue what she's feeling now. Aeryn's poker face could win them millions of credits if put to good use, but when he's trying to figure out if she's healthy or not, if she's tripping into heat delirium or not, if being blinked into a whole other galaxy where one on of the main players is a beady-eyed classicist who keeps ogling her has upset anything in her system—which is only a month out from birthing their son—it doesn't hold up well.

Can't fall back on being physical.

Their relationship was physical first. Her thighs strapped tight around his neck, them cramped together in the little pit of his module or lost in a different alternate reality where they dissected Sparky and she undulated on top of him while a rainstorm slapped at the window.

What he knows about her now, is that she's shimmied all the way to the other side of the Queen-sized bed the army hooked them up with, that her legs have cycled the sheets and blankets passed her ankles and she's still cycling. If it wasn't for the heat, he would assume that it was a bad dream, but he can't remember the last time she's had one, or the last time he was there for one, or that she told him about one—maybe she's started keeping those to herself too.

Her tank top is riding up her back with the constant cycling, and her skin almost glows in the dark by how covered in sweat she is. With a final kick, she shoots the sheets and blankets off the bed—halfway off him—and onto the ground. The mattress bounces as she sits up on the edge for a few minutes, before standing, rounding the bed soundlessly, aiming towards the bathroom.

He turns towards the opposite wall tracing her movements in the dark, listening to the door creak shut, and watching the sliver of light flicker on. There's running water and after that he falls asleep. He'll ask her about it in the morning—

At least that's what he wants to do, because that's what he's used to doing.

Leaving the suitcase at the door for her to take care of.

Leaving their son in a soiled diaper while he ducks out into another endless Moya corridor to hang out in the command room and talk to ghosts.

If he asks her what's wrong, she's not going to answer him. Mainly because she's refused to speak to him in English since her ice bath, but she doesn't want him concerned with it, just like he is overly concerned with every single thing she does because someone has to be.

But she's still sitting on the edge of the bed, so he asks her anyway.

"Aeryn?" His voice comes out groggier than he means, and he realizes this is the first full night of sleep they've gotten since Deke was born, well, she's gotten—he was sort of out of commission for the first week.

She doesn't answer him, just rounds the end of the bed, heading towards the bathroom.

So he shuffles up in bed, sits with just a flat sheet over his lap and bent knees, and leans over to the side table, clicking on the lamp. "Are you okay?"

She recoils at the sudden blast of light—the same way he does—but it makes her stop her trek to the bathroom. When she doesn't say a word, he calls out to her again, because maybe she's used to waking up in weird places—but maybe she's not. "Aeryn?"

Her answer is a scoff, and words in Sebacean—the choking inhales and sudden screeches—before she rolls her eyes and takes another two steps.

"Baby," he sighs and rubs a hand across his face, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes. "You gotta work with me here."

The Sebacean keeps pouring from her mouth, but he's a guy and he can pick up on the pissed off intonations she's using whether she wants him to or not.

"This isn't going to work."

And the words he doesn't know just keep pouring out.

"You can't be against every single person here."

Backwards Ts and sibilant Ss.

"Do you really think that's going to get us back to Deke any quicker!"

They're argument—their multilingual argument crescendos beautifully in him yelling about her piss poor plan to ironically alienate everyone around her, while she throat screams. Then she stops, and he stops, and they stare at each other for a second and if he was a betting man—knowing her poker face—he would place money on that bathroom door being slammed in less than a minute.

But he's not a betting man. He's a family man—sort of—trying to be.

"I'm sorry I never learned Sebacean." Starts off talking to her, but his eyes scroll down to the crisp starched sheet tented at his knees. "I'm sorry about a lot of things."

Surprisingly, she keeps her stance.

"I'm sorry that I never asked you how you were—after—well everything. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you and Deke for that first week—or since—kinda. I'm sorry the temperature here is making you sick, and that you're worried about our son, and that I'm not sharing in the panic as much." Wants to add that he's pretty sure she knows why he's not panicking, but there's only so much self-flagellation that he can take this early in the morning, under a mountain, in a different galaxy. But it's getting to him, not the apologizing, because she deserves it, but admitting out loud to all the things he's been screwing up on lately. With a softer voice, almost just a tired whisper, he adds. "I'm sorry you went through all the trouble of learning English for him, but that I never thought to learn Sebacean for you."

The mattress depresses again, and when he glances up from his lap, she's perched on his side of the bed this time, her hand cups over one of his knees, and being this close to her, is like sitting in a campfire.

"He didn't learn Sebacean either."

Doesn't know if it's her broken English, or if it's her accent—but the words slipping from her mouth and to his ears make him relax more than any night of full rest ever could. He sets his hand over hers, jostling his knee a bit, careful not to linger to long because he thinks she's approaching the first step of heat delirium again.

But when his eyes catch hers, and they're the same color as their son's, month old baby boy Crichton galaxies away, helpless because they're not there—sure he's got the Moya gang—but he's practically a newborn, hell, the kid probably already has a bounty on his head—his stomach sinks, the exhaustion bleeds from his face, the stinging from his eyes, and for a second he thinks he's gonna puke.

He knows how she feels, because now he feels it too. Their son is out there, maybe among family, maybe not. Maybe still on that command room table they left him on, and they can't do a damn thing about it from here.

He smiles weakly at her, seeing the same tears in her eyes that he has, seeing the same relief that they finally might be on an even battlefield, and that maybe they should start fighting the actual enemy instead of each other.

"Can you teach me how to speak Sebacean?"

It's a true request—also a joke meant to lighten the mood—but the way her lips break into a full smile, her eyes gleaming along with her sweaty cheeks and forehead, he knows that she sees the sincerity in the question. Only nods with a tight grin, before pulling him into a hug, and shaking—maybe sobbing—against the top of his head as he wraps his arms around her drenched back.

Enjoys the embrace until the count of five, that's what he gives himself, his nose tickling the side of her neck, dragging from her collarbone to nuzzle at her ear as she flinches and laughs. He gets a kiss—one kiss—that restores all the fantasies of sleeping feet apart from her on that tiny stupid bed. Her lips relax him, her fingers at his cheek, her taste so familiar—she tastes hot.

"Okay." Smacks a kiss onto her cheek and taps her ass, which is almost in his lap, almost able to sense why the sheet would be tented for different reasons. He shimmies his legs as a distraction and to get her to stand. When she does, he juts a thumb to the bathroom. "Ice bath, let's go."

"John—" her fingers pet through his hair, flutter to behind his ear "—you don't have to come with—"

"Yeah." Retrieves said hand, and plants a kiss on her extended palm. "Yeah, I do."

* * *

He wakes up semi-hard for the first time since he can remember. Doesn't know why, except he knows exactly why, because the dream he was having, one he was far too into because—it was a good thing he woke up when he did.

Takes a second to place himself, the cold air circulating through the room helping to distract him as he shifts on the squeaky, God awful bed. Thought he wasn't alone, because in the dream he definitely wasn't—his hand smacks the small empty space beside him, and he finds whatever is passing as the mattress cold too, which is weird because he thought—

A gurgle interrupts him slowly piecing memories together: stones, another galaxy, doppelgangers, a living ship. A wail reminds him of the baby, that is kinda cute when he finally stops screaming, and—

"Oh, there is no need to cry."

Vala.

She's a few feet away from him, her back not completely to him, more like on a slant as she stands from the floor, hiking the kid up with her. The baby stops his crying, like he can understand her, or maybe because she's entertaining him, lifting him a little above her head, and then bringing him close to her face to touch her nose against his.

"There you are, my Darling." It's a whisper that's so genuine, someone might actually confuse her for his mom. Her rubbing noses with the kid doesn't help.

He doesn't really care because as long as she's taking care of the baby, he doesn't have to. It also keeps her out of trouble, as in, she'll be less likely to stumble off raised walkways, or be force fed goo if she's preoccupied.

Plus every time she lifts the kid, the black t-shirt she's changed into raises a bit from where it meets the leather pants hugging the curve of her ass. The sliver of skin grows until it bares her hips, then her navel and, despite his best efforts and the cold air, he finds something stirring within him again because in his dream her body looked exactly the same.

"Let's get rid of your little present before Uncle Colonel wakes up and has words with us." The little guy fits into the crook of her arm as she stoops and snatches something she's rolled into a ball. He closes his eyes, not so that she won't find out he's playing opossum but her squatting only accentuates the hug of that leather.

She strolls by the bed, baby talking to their not-son and he gets a great whiff of rank diaper—which is enough to snuff out any lingering fantasies. She stops at the wall, and through his barely open eyes, she hits a panel revealing a garbage chute or something because she tosses the diaper in and closes it up again.

The kid makes another gurgle, a deeper one that evolves into an unhappy whine, and she pokes at his stomach underneath a new onesie she must have changed him into. How does she already know where everything is, they've been here a day and a half? How the hell is she taking care of this kid so well when the Vala he knows breaks into level five security clearance computer files, and then jail breaks out of the holding cell she's placed in as punishment. He's seen her swipe five different things in just as many minutes. He knows for a fact that she has three of Jackson's credit card numbers, one of his, and had one of Sam's but gave it back for her birthday.

"Someone is a hungry boy." Has a bright grin on her face as she strides away from him again, picking up a silver pack on one of the tables, rounding the pile of clothes still in the middle of the room.

And he realizes he loves seeing her with the baby.

Not just because he knows the kid is a fail-safe and it lets him relax, and not just because she seems happier and more carefree. Knows it does something inside of him, flickers something on that certain dreams stem off of, watching her be maternal, watching her snuggle and protect someone so small. It shows a different side of her, one that's just as hot as the dips of her hips.

"Perhaps Colonel Uncle will stop pretending he's asleep and allow us to use the bed for your feeding?" She singsongs her words until reaching the end of her sentence where she becomes very blunt.

"That's Uncle Colonel." He groans, trying to play it cool under her watchful eye, because of course she knew he was sneaking peeks. This is Vala, she knows where every security measure is, and knows when someone has eyes on her.

As he shoves an arm underneath him, pushing himself up to sit, she approaches smelling different, cleaner, and he realizes she had another shower when he hasn't even gotten one yet. She hands him the silver pack, which looks just like a juice pouch—it even has a straw thing to shove into an opening, but the end of it looks like a bottle so the baby can nurse.

The kid whimpers again, and she whispers hushes at him, bouncing him up to rest on her shoulder. Her t-shirt rides up, and those leather pants are slanted and—

"Mitchell?" She's staring at him, and he actually flinches this time because she caught him red-handed.

"What?" He ducks his head back down, screwing the feeding straw into the juice pouch.

Quirks her lips to the side and then stands beside the bed, her knee nudging his, telling him to shove down so she can sit. "I asked if you saw something you liked, but now I'm not so sure it wasn't the food pouch."

"I just noticed that you had another shower." Tightens the nursing straw until he's sure if he tightens it anymore he'll rip the bag clear in half.

"Yes." She takes the pouch from him and nudges the end against the baby's mouth. He's just starting to cry, the redness creeping into his wrinkled face. She didn't swaddle him, so his little fists are pumping. "I needed one after I woke."

The baby doesn't seem interested in the food at all, and now his legs are starting to kick in the air. Thinks that maybe she's done in, and even though she's the one who's showered and cleaned and probably eaten, there's a weird voice in his head that wants to offer to try to feed the kid—but just before he opens his mouth, the baby opens his to scream and she shoves the end right on in.

At first the kid seems offended, his eyes wide and his wispy eyebrows furrowed, but then he starts to suck, and she uses one hand to cradle his body and one to slowly squeeze out the contents of the pouch.

"You're staring again." She doesn't draw her eyes away from the baby but uses the same knowing singsong voice as before.

Wants to tell her it's because she looks gorgeous. Her skin is glowing a bit, and there's a soft curl in her hair, and he can see the way her eyelashes spread when she blinks down at the baby in her arms. How the back of her shirt has inched up.

Thinks that if he told her all that, and then maybe about the dream that got him more aroused than any porn in his computer search history has, that she would actually be into it. She would probably finish feeding the baby, and then curl up next to him and let him run his hands over her hips and her navel—and that's why he can't. Eventually, they're going to go back to the SGC, and if he starts something here with her, he's going to have to bring it back there, and as sneaky as she is when she's stealing shit—sometimes his shit, sometimes from right in front of him—he knows that her big mouth wouldn't keep it a secret. Hell, she would probably brag about it to Jackson to make him jealous.

So instead he falls back on the stern colonel character, the commanding officer routine, like he's done so many times before, like when they were in Auburn and she was in his bed, and he was on the couch staring at the ceiling, thinking about her in his bed. "I was just hoping you were eventually going to share some information about this place, like how to tell the time, or where I can get a shower."

"Well ask, and you shall receive, Darling." She sits up straighter, squeezing a bit more from of the top of the pouch, directing all the food inside downwards. "The shower is called a 'refresher' and it's around the corner, the third door on the left."

The baby—Deke, now he remembers—is suckling loudly, greedily. One of his fists raising and brushing against her fingers holding the pouch. After another suckle, his fingers spread and wrap around hers, and her reaction is beautiful, the sass and the sarcasm slipping away for a genuine warm grin make him want to stay, make him want to enjoy this with her. "Maybe I'll just wait, and you can show me when he's done eating."

And it's like she can sense what he's thinking—not the sexual things—but how he's admiring her for caring, because she snaps right out of it, sliding her fingers back to the top of the pouch and rolling it down like a tube of toothpaste.

"And maybe you'll do us a favor by going now." She reaches over and tugs on the sleeve of his fatigues, which are more than dirty. "If my time telling is correct, you've been in those fatigues for almost fifty hours and you're not smelling so lovely."

"Yeah I get it." Rolls his eyes and groans as he pushes up from the bed, his thigh a little rusty.

"Make sure you take in new clothes with you." Deke starts to tire in her arms, the little guy must have a full belly, because his hand slowly drops from the air and his mouth stops sucking. Amazingly, when Vala, tugs the pouch from his mouth, the baby doesn't make a sound, even as she adjusts him back against her chest for burping. "Do you have a shirt under that?"

He screws his eyes a bit, trying to understand her insinuation. "Yeah—"

"Good, give it here. I need a burping cloth."

"You're not using my shirt as a burp cloth."

"Mitchell, he has a full tummy and if he—"

"You're not using it Vala!"

"Then you'd better find a suitable replacement." The hand not supporting Deke is gesturing wildly around the room. "Because if he vomits on me, I'm going to be back in the showers, whether you're there or not."

* * *

He's never wished a kid would throw up so much in his life.

But after a few minutes of standing underneath the stream of water, he realizes that his undershirt probably did the trick. The rest of his fatigues lay across a bench a few feet away along with his new clothes, a simple black t-shirt and leather pants, just like hers.

When he complained about the leather, asking why this galaxy seemed not to know the comfy fashion of sweats or jeans, she shrugged while burping the baby and said that leather is best worn in phases, then sighed, leaning her cheek against the top of Deke's head, his once white, now gray undershirt laying over her shoulder, and said she was done her phase when she stayed at the SGC.

He scrubs a hand over his hair, and then washes one over his face. Wonders what she did before she got to the SGC. What planet is she from exactly? They've worked together for a while now, and he doesn't know anything about her except that she worked in thieving and cons. She doesn't talk much about it, and whenever anyone brings it up, it seems to upset her in the same way that him catching that smile did, so he tries to let it go.

She's brought it up before on missions, how she can get whatever they need for the right price, and Jackson goes into the same prodding that leaves her pulling sardonic remarks out of her ass until someone steps in and changes the subject. She obviously didn't like who she was back then, so why bring it up if it makes her feel bad? She's changed a lot, proven herself to them. She's earned it.

She's changed a lot all right, and he tries to steer his mind away from the dream and how good her skin felt under his, around his. That gap of skin that's going to drive him crazy all day. When she was in Auburn and had on her Daisy Duke's he never asked her to change, because it was her vacation too, and she needed to have fun to—can he order her to change?—he definitely can't order her to change because if she doesn't tear him a new one, Chiana definitely will.

His one-track mind tries to steer him back to pumping out what he needs too because of hips dips and navel plains, but thankfully before his hands skip to the danger zone, he remembers that he's on a living ship and it is definitely not appropriate.

He keeps his hands to himself, in the most literal way, and steps out of the shower, towards the towel he hung off the bench beside his clothes. He doesn't know what the water is made out of, or where it's coming from, just made sure not to think about it and not to get any in his eyes and mouth. If he ever has the pleasure of meeting Crichton, he's gotta ask him how he's lasted over four years on this ship—what is the appropriate conduct with the ship? Should he talk to her? They talk to the baby who can't understand them, and he's talked to jets he's flown before, but knowing it could hear and understand is kind of freaky.

Also, there's no way that guy went long without knocking one out because just the stress and the pressure from space has been revving him up and it's hardly been two days.

He tosses the towel back to the bench and tries to navigate his new outfit. The shirt is no problem, the underwear are boxer briefs and he's more than glad for that, but the pants. He tugs the shirt on, and the undies and then gets to work.

Someone pounds on the door once he gets his first leg in.

"Mitchell—" Vala's voice carries over the empty room and there's a pause where he hears Deke cry.

"Gimme a sec—" Yanks o the other leg and as he tries to pull them up they crease against his thighs.

There's another bang on the door—at least she gave him that second—and he shimmies up the pants while he walks towards the door, listening to her spout out words from the other side, which isn't upsetting him the way it would if they were back at the SGC. If he was in the showers there, slipping on his favorite pair of fatigues, and she harshed his calm by slamming her hand into the door this many times—especially with a screaming baby—he would probably come out all red-faced and tear into her until she got that glassy look in her eyes that makes him feel like shit.

Realizes that this Crichton guy didn't last on this ship. He has a kid, he has a wife, and he wonders how long it actually took before he gave in, because apparently his wife looks exactly like Vala, and he needs to know what record he has to beat.

Or when it's okay to give in.

As he buttons up the pants, still surprised that he didn't have to suck in his stomach to get them on, he pushes the button to open the door, and finds her pacing outside the room, bouncing the baby and looking a little worried.

Takes his hands away from his belt, and steps to intercept her. Placing and hand on her bicep. He doesn't think before he does it, it just seemed natural, like comforting her means more than breaking the rules he gave himself. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Noranti—that old woman—"

His hand drops from her arm as he stiffens, his back straight, his eyes scanning the hallway searching for her. "What did she do?"

Vala narrows her eyes, and tilts her head, observing him. "Nothing."

And he doesn't know if this is the that thing she does where she sacrifices herself in order to keep him safe—where she doesn't tell if something is hurting her, because it will get in the way. His hand rests on her shoulder, drawing her eyes away from calming the baby, to him. "If she—"

"She didn't do anything, Mitchell."

"Then what?—"

"She thinks she knows where we can find the stones."


	10. Better Than None

_A/N:_ _Please note this chapter follows a three (solar) day passage-basically by the end of the chapter everyone has been switched for five days._

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 10

Better Than None

After three solar days, the need to be reunited with her son does not decrease.

However, she begins to grow calmer despite the situation, despite the temperature constantly infiltrating her body, forcing a more exhausted and fatigued state, negating her usefulness.

Through the burden of her powerlessness, trust begins to form with the military employees she interacts with routinely, the gentle blonde colonel, the gruff general, the rambling doctor, and the big one who speaks less than she does. She still ignores the pleasant chitchat they make to fill the silence as it is not a prerequisite for a successful mission, and their questions quickly evolve into concerning her physique, why exactly she finds this heat nearly unbearable when they simply discard their jackets and roll up their sleeves. Questions about her race, where she was born, how they should address her, what her abilities are, if any.

Ignores them because questions such as these are not expediting the reunion with her son.

The colonel dresses the information gathering as bonding, speaking about her son as if they've met, as if she was present for his traumatic birth, as if this colonel has a single idea of the roiling occurring in her body from the separation.

The doctor feigns curiosity, boasts his prowess in multilingualism, speaks to her in languages that three solar days ago, she would have translated automatically. He flips between languages like they're pages in one of his large texts. Books, that when he won't embrace the silence, she wants to beat him with.

The general notes that fact-gathering is part of any mission, part of sending her back to Moya, her friends, her son, her climate-controlled room that allows her the simple pleasure of sleeping through the night before she birthed a boisterous baby.

The large one says nothing, but nods or bows civilly. She prefers him the most.

She does not answer the majority of the questions, instead leaving them for John.

The bond between them is growing strong once again, allowing them to combat their apprehensions together. Revived the first night they shared a bed in their assigned room where he woke with her, shared the burden of her weakness to the heat, slumped on the tiled floor beside the basin she sat in, filled once again with ice, and chattered to her as he fought sleep.

Held her hand as she relaxed into the comfortable temperature, but when she became too listless, her movements lagging as the cold temperature superseded the hot, and the sleepless nights from caring for Deke added to her grogginess, and she closed her eyes, he shook her awake immediately, shoving his hands through the ice and whisking her up and into a stiff towel. Talked to her in that worried ramble as he rubbed heat back into her shoulders and held her upright when her eyes closed again.

He apologized for her weakness to her, wished he knew of a better way to help, and embraced her.

After that night they reduced fluid levels quite frequently, more often then on Moya, even before Deke was born.

More often then on Talyn.

Finally, although stranded in another universe, she felt their relationship mold into what it was meant to be, felt completely connected to her husband and trusted him implicitly. Knew he wouldn't divulge too much pertinent information concerning her biology.

It is the start of the fourth solar day as they lay in bed, post-coital, sheets rippled and piled at their feet. He holds an ice pack to the back of her neck, under the hair he fanned across the pillow, and purposefully places another across her exposed navel, enjoying her jump and gleefully accepting the shove she delivers into his shoulder with a deep laugh, catching her hand on her recoil and placing individual kisses upon each of her fingertips.

The device on the nearby table rings, not the one meant to rouse them from sleep, but the one that releases some form of klaxon. John instinctively know what to do, reaching and retrieving the handle, the alarm stops as he brings it to his ear.

"Yeah?" He grunts into the receptor—he's explained the purpose of the device before, a comm of sorts, but immobile, tethered to the wall. "Well, that's good."

He rolls away from her, his attentions on the comm conversation, and when she shifts from the bed, his hand instinctively reaches behind him for her. A clumsy gesture, but a sweet one. She takes pity on him, directs his hand to cup her cheek as she relaxes back against a mattress, and two very watery bags of ice.

"All right, we'll be up in a few microts—minu—whatever." He crashes the handle back onto the remains of the device, his free hand drifting to her hair, pulling, massaging as she nudges up against him, her chin against his ribs, feeling his dramatic inhalation as she rests her cold hands against skin.

He rolls over on his back, kisses her, then again, longer, harder, prolonged and interestingly, with that cheeky grin. She breaks the embrace, keeping cool fingers at his temples, grounding him. "What was that about?"

But, he flips her into his lap, runs his fingers tantalizingly slow over her hips, then higher to her ribs, her neck, before sitting up and popping a final kiss on her lips. "They think they might have found a few planets that could have stones on them."

* * *

Apparently, this is what these people do.

Dress in tan, or black, or dark green outfits, and strap themselves down with weaponry, the 'essentials'—Peacekeepers would snort at the opulence—and leave this version of Earth to any number of unexplored planets eager to explore.

They're allowed to view an arched sculpture carved with ornate symbols, and she's knows this is the device they call a Stargate. When the colonel mentions it is a controlled wormhole, John guffaws. She rolls her eyes and steps away from the doctor, who purposefully took a step closer.

Afterwards they file into a meeting room, with a large table and several chairs. The colonel blathers off a list of five planets, which is almost too perfect a number as there are five of them, but when John reads her intuitions and presumes everyone is to go to a separate planet, the colonel and the doctor just laugh.

"No, we all have to go to each one together," the colonel clarifies.

John crosses his arms, and straightens his back, the positions he tries when attempting intimidation which never work on her because she can read through to the same cheeky grin. "Wouldn't that take a hell of a lot longer?"

"Yeah, but it would be a hell of a lot safer," the doctor counters, and mirrors John's stance before taking a direct look to her.

Safety is also what these people do.

It is surprising that she and John have been allowed to roam through the complex as freely as they have.

Much more surprising after the requirements before gate travel are explained to her.

The rest of their fourth solar day is spent proving themselves to a team of humans who have no idea what it is like in the rages of space.

They're taken to something called a range, which in her mottled English, she confuses for an oven, and told to fire at targets to prove their abilities with weaponry, which everyone, including the general agrees is a waste of time.

They both have a sparring session with the large, silent man, to prove themselves in hand-to-hand combat. John is immediately knocked off his feet due to his bantering, but she is easily able to seize the upper hand. She suspects the man was withholding his full force. Perhaps because she's a woman. Perhaps because she resembles his friend, whom, she's been frequently told, she acts nothing like.

Lastly they're sent to a doctor to clear them medically. It's the simplest out of all the processes, yet it by far requires the most time. Once the doctor is made aware they're not from this Earth and have had prolonged exposure to the affects of space, she wants to run tests before inoculating them against anything.

A blood test, a swabbing of their mouths, and some form of Diagnosian scan for the entire body.

John argues, not really seeing the point, and she flat out refuses, using the little bit of English they know she has, she crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair and reiterates, "no."

"The scan might be beneficial to you." The colonel takes the seat beside her, nearing her, but never touching her directly. However, she refuses to even offer eye contact. "It may be able to tell us why your so susceptible to the heat."

"No."

"It might allow us a method to bypass your response to the heat." The doctor is approaching her, and from behind him, John jolts awake, taking giant strides to be at her side first.

"Her and I know why she's susceptible to the heat, which is enough." He grasps her hand, starting to grow too hot again in the bright lights of the medical unit, and starts to draw her away and to the door.

"So, you're just going to give up on finding stones?"

"If it means keeping her body private, then yes."

"But these stones can get you home—Officer Sun, they can get you back to your son."

"I will not allow my body to be subject to another slew of invasions and tests." Speaks it in perfect English, to the whole room which falls silent. The two humans from surprise at her prowess with words, and John because he knows the situations she's referring to, knows she will not be taken prisoner again.

As the doctor tries to stutter out a sentence, John keeps hold of her clammy hand, directing her attention to have a dialogue with only him. "What about just the swab and the blood test. You did it when you were on my Earth. You didn't care much about them."

She has her convictions and, under normal circumstances, holds herself to them as a method to ground her, to give her strength and direction when she feels so lost—holding a child that will not stop crying, yet now in the absence of his weight, his noise, she finds her convictions bending.

"I'll do it too. We can get it done at the same time, like matching tattoos." He tries to lighten the mood, swings her arm in a mock dance and wears that lopsided grin their son inherited. But something still feels dangerous about the situation, allowing bits of her biological material, even a small portion to be processed for examination—she may end up turning into Pilot again.

But John draws her near, and the voices of the others fade away until she can just hear his breathing, feel the hot puffs of air against her cheek, and he mumbles, "we gotta do this honey, we gotta do it for Deke."

* * *

Obligations and restrictions force a separation upon them.

Since John is human, despite his marginalization from belonging to another galaxy, his tests prove simple to follow. She sits beside him as they swab his mouth and cap the small bit of material that absorbed his saliva. His hand cups her thigh while they tie a tourniquet around his arm and draw blood from a vein, something he says he's never been good with, explaining getting needles and shots and how his mom would take him out for a milkshake after.

"So, she bribed you?" Her voice is coy, but she lovingly strokes a hand through his hair as the doctor cocks a curious eyebrow at them before bandaging up his arm.

"No, she gave me something to look forward to. I had to get the needle, but she made me think of a good thing instead of being afraid."

She feels an unbalance within her, equating to knowing that she wants to do that with Deke, that when he faces hardships, she wants him to focus on the good that will be birthed from the suffering, not the pain and strife to achieve it.

But the notion isn't just the yearning for her child, it's equally terrifying in a different but oddly familiar way.

John sits with her while they draw her blood and she doesn't flinch. She waits as they tourniquet her arm in the same manner, and tell her to make a fist, which she does in defense, until he lowers her arm gently away from threatening the doctor, holding it with his hand. She wants to watch as they draw her blood, the same way they did with him, the small vial growing dark, but he tips her head up, his eyes resting on hers and he talks to her so softly, that she doesn't realize they've finished until the pressure relieves on her arm.

"See that?" Caresses her cheek and grins at her, the same lopsided one that sometimes graces their son's face. "You did great."

Wants to tell him she wasn't worried about getting her blood drawn, or about getting her mouth swabbed, although she didn't enjoy the process. Is more worried about the pinch inside of her, the something growing heavy but still unnervingly familiar.

Her test takes longer to run due to unknown variants in her blood, and after already researching and waiting for three days, the humans are getting restless and wish to start exploring other planets in search of the stones. Since nothing extraordinary appeared in John's medical samples, the doctor clears him to travel off world.

She, however, must remain behind.

Promised it would only be the day, as she may be needed to answer any questions the doctor may have.

She already knows she will not.

Eventually they relent, because John can help more, and the planet they choose for their first mission is what the colonel calls 'tropical', which John explains indicates the temperatures are higher than average, meaning she wouldn't be of any use anyway.

Jealousy invades her as she stands stagnant in the room after kissing him goodbye and watches him march through the blue eye of the gate. The general stands beside her, reading the sudden falling of her face as concern for her husband, perhaps the undulating concern for her son, and careful not to touch her, he states matter-of-factly. "He'll be fine, P3J-222 is a beach resort of a planet."

But her sick expression wasn't for her son a galaxy away, or her wormhole enthusiast husband who cheered as he walked through the gate leaving her behind, but because her microbe-less mind finally translated the unsettling notion within her, the ever constant pinch not strong enough to pose her discomfort on the same level as the irritating and nauseating heat.

She swallows harshly and stares at the gate, unable to do anything else, until the doctor summons her back to the medical lab.

"Your swab was fine." The doctor, a brash speaking woman, is always preoccupied, always buzzing around the small exam room, straightening canisters or smoothing out sheets. "But your blood test gave me some cause for concern."

"I know."

The doctor ignores the firm nod she gives, and drags over a chair, continuing her monologue. "There's a few hormones that are high, in humans it's indicative of—"

"I know what it means."

"Well." The doctor pulls her lips tight and sets her hands on her knees. "I'm sorry to inform you, but you'll have to be grounded to the complex for the remainder of your stay."

The void expression on her face straightens, replaces with full outrage. "Please tell me I mistranslated something—"

"It's standard military practice." The doctor scratches something onto a clipboard. "Unfortunately, you're a liability, and if anything happens to you or—"

When the doctor stands, she imitates the action, both pushing their chairs back with a screeching slide. "You know nothing of my physiology—"

"Because you won't tell us."

"You, therefore, know nothing of my reproductive cycle. This information can't be allowed to—"

"Officer Sun." The doctor holds up a hand to silence her, which only proves to provoke her more, creates more friction. "Because of doctor/patient confidentially, I cannot discuss your medical issues with anyone but you. So this information isn't going anywhere else." She slips the writing implement behind her ear and slaps the clipboard once against her leg. "And because of your pregnancy, neither are you."

* * *

The old woman, whom she is still hesitant to fully trust, herds them into the room they arrived in, the control room, or command room, or some other bravado name when it only consists of a poorly constructed table and large windows to open space.

Noranti's third eye opens, glowing green as she munches on clippings from a small satchel tied around her wrist and points emphatically at the empty slots where the stones should be. "I believe I know where you can procure a stone you're in search of."

Mitchell stands beside her, his arms crossed, and his jaw set all manly man. She's not quite sure, but she thinks he's placed himself between her and the old woman, who is still jigging around the table extremely happy, on purpose.

"You know where to get the stones, Wrinkles?" Chiana slips by them, prowls to the other side of the table, opposite of the old woman.

Noranti stops her dance, shaking her head. "No. Not at all."

Mitchell raises a hand and crunches his eyebrows, sometimes he gives her the same expression when he doesn't quite understand the level she's speaking at, if she's talking about crystals or in Goa'uld. "But you just said—"

"Stone." The old woman corrects, wiping her lower lip free of what looked to be the nail clippings she was snacking on. "I think I might know where you can find a single stone."

The room stays silent for a bit, Chiana not really interested in the conversation as she cocks her head at the device again. Mitchell sighs and patiently waits for an explanation. Little Deke begins fussing about in her arms, until she adjusts him, facing forward so he can see the long-range communication device as well.

"Well," it's a little breathless because she's still aching from her moontides. The old woman delivered on the feminine hygiene products she required and even gave her a mild pain killer, which she took despite the history between them—she still feels more lethargic than usual. However, she has to keep the optimism up, if no one else will. The baby continues to wiggle, and she bounces him a bit. "I suppose one stone is better than none."

"I'm sorry." Mitchell's arms unfold and he turns towards her, as his eye contact remains with the old woman, his large hands grasp around Deke, and he lifts the baby easily from her arms, holding him forwards, and rocking him gently until his fussing ceases.

The entire exchange is not only flawless, but more so natural, leaving her wide-eyed in surprise.

When he turns back to her, Deke almost cooing in his arms, and offering her a concerned expression, a little flutter jitters through her stomach. "Are we trusting her now?"

"Surely you're not still upset about earlier? I merely—"

"You can't just go force feeding people your dren, Wrinkles."

"It was for a good—"

Mitchell continues to watch her as the disagreement breaks out before them. She glances up at him, her eyes heavy and her smile complimentary. "I don't think we have a choice."

* * *

The planet, Valdun, is three solar cycles away, which she loosely translates into days.

Neither her nor Mitchell are particularly pleased about the travel time but use it to familiarize themselves with Mayo. The refreshers, the room in which they do laundry in a glowing pool of blue, some sort of fluid she doesn't remember the name of. She's able to clean Officer Sun's clothes which she wore and were either soiled by her, or by Deke throwing up on her.

She spends time with Pilot, learns more about the mechanics of Mayo because she's never been on a ship she hasn't been able to fly herself. She perches on his desk, or sits before it wrapped up in one of the fur blankets from the bed, and listens to him speak of his home world, his forced bonding to Mayo, how he speaks of the pain he's endured like it's inconsequential, like it doesn't matter.

How his darling voice dips and she knows he can still feel the tremors of pain the way she does sometimes.

He also tells her of Officer Sun.

Speaks so highly of her, telling of her mottled background and how her lack of compassion transformed once she met Crichton. How she visited him once in tears because she feared her child wasn't bonding to her, how being a mother was the most terrifying thing she'd ever done. How he reassured her until she fell into an exhausted sleep in the very spot before his desk that she sits now, and how he silenced everything he could to allow her the peace she deserved.

"Why did you tell me all this, Pilot?"

"Because I believe you know how to keep a secret."

Chiana and her speak more, understand each other better over their shared tattered histories of sexual deviancy. Of being judged by only a scrap of their personalities and not as a whole. By being defined by pasts they try to outrun but never quite can.

On the second night while slinking down the hallway, unnoticed by Mitchell searching for her for baby duty, Chiana tells her of a lost love, and her delightful cat eyes glass over with tears. She holds her while she cries, knowing all too much what it's like to walk away from dying loved ones.

After that, she spends most of her time on an observation deck, sometimes sitting with a novel written in a different language that she can suddenly read or leafing through Commander Crichton's star maps and journals. Sometimes she brings Deke up with her, and they fall asleep under a canopy of stars and planets in beautiful rainbow hues.

Sometimes Mitchell will wake her up for dinner, sometimes his large hands slip around the baby and remove him from her chest or side to go do a feeding or diaper change.

Despite him trusting her more, and perhaps having her back more actively than he ever has, the strain between them grows awkward. They agree, for the sake of the baby and equal workloads, that they will share the bedroom that still lingers around near freezing temperatures—she doesn't know how Deke hasn't caught a cold yet.

She shows Mitchell how to use the waste disposal in the far wall, where the diapers and clothing are located, and true to his word, sometimes when the baby cries at night, she hears him squeak up from the other bed he's dragged in from next door. It just makes more sense, more room to sleep, less intimate, but sometimes her body still tingles when his side brushes against hers in the hallway, or when she's walking too slow from fatigue, and he grabs her hand, guiding her along to see his new discovery on board.

After they've turned in on the third night, after a long conversation with Noranti, who kept jabbing a finger at the device and showing them where to place the stone once they retrieved it tomorrow, stating the symbols on the device dictated this was the one for their galaxy—what symbols she didn't know, and her and Mitchell chuckled about it later—the privacy screens are drawn and the baby is snoring softly at the end of their beds.

She hesitates, but twists from side-to-side, pent up, her back aching from her now dwindling cramps, her body restless, aching and cold in a still somewhat unfamiliar environment.

"You keep doing that, and you're going to wake the baby."

When she flips back to see him, his back is straight against the bed, his eyes closed and facing the ceiling, his words a low rumble.

Tucks her hands up underneath her head which alleviates the pressure in her neck but amplifies the one in her lower back. "I'm sorry, I'm just uncomfortable."

"Well get comfortable."

She rolls her eyes at him, at the same bluntness he's always treated her with, and flips onto her back, staring at the same ceiling indistinguishable in the dark. "Yes, that's helpful."

Assumes he will just ignore her snarky reply and go back to his macho man snoring, that somehow doesn't wake the baby. Instead he chuckles, and turns towards her, stretching his bad leg out from under the blanket. "What's wrong?"

She blinks at him, once, then twice, trying to decide if this is some sort of weird dream from the pressures of space, but then she shifts her hips and the dull pain is still present in her pelvis. A conversation, even in a dream, is better than focusing on the pain, however she still skates over the cause as Sam's advisement to 'never discuss feminine matters public', rings through her head. "Just achy from these awful beds."

"Yeah, they really suck."

"You'd think with the technological advancements, being completely multilingual, eradication of most disease, they would have developed better sleeping implements."

He chuckles again, holding his breathe when the baby stirs.

In the silence she presumes he's fallen back asleep, but in the darkness he poses, with a hint of mirth in his voice, "how pissed do you think Jackson is gonna be when he finds out that we can understand every language now?"

"Oh, he will be positively livid."

They speak more, some words she remembers, most she doesn't as she drifts into sleep. It's late—perhaps the middle of what Chiana refers to as the 'sleep cycle' when she's jolted awake by a wall of warmth, her body initially tenses, staying perfectly still, but the heat slowly works her apart from being curled in on herself.

"Sorry," Mitchell apologizes so closely to her that the word caresses her ear. Her muscles seize again, disorientated mind unable to place herself, to identify the danger. "You were shivering so loud that you woke the little guy."

At the foot of their now combined, three-piece bed, the bassinet remains undisturbed. Little Deke sound asleep inside.

"I fed him half of the juice pouch—" their triple bed shudders as he guides his bad thigh on. They're not as close as before, when they were literally hanging off each other or the edge, but there's less than a person's width between them "—I hummed him some classic rock and he went right out again."

Blinks at him through groggy eyes. "I don't understand."

"I'll explain in the morning, as long as you're okay with the sleeping arrangements." His fingers pluck a strand of her hand from her mouth and she notes the difference in temperature. Her limbs, her bones are sore from the sheer cold. When she shudders again, he tugs up his fur blanket, draping it more over her. "You're okay with this, right?"

Vaguely remembers Mitchell enamored with her and the baby, watching her for him through the slits of an untrained deceiver's eyes. Assumed it hacked into a portion of him he didn't know existed, the one where he wanted a wife and kids—or the one where he strove to achieve the family life she was able to view at his parents' farm.

"You—you were really shaking, Vala." The bed balances out between them as he relaxes onto his portion. Although she's facing away from him, she knows he's turned her way, waiting for an elaboration which she cannot offer. "You feeling okay?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, a creepy old lady fed you playdough."

"I just feel split."

Between enjoying caring for a baby that resembles her, a baby made out of love—one she didn't have to birth, one who is not her own.

Enjoying the people on Mayo, bonding with them over battle scars.

Relieved at the ebbing cramps waning in her pelvis, yet unimpressed with the idea of having to ensure safer intercourse with the boys around the base upon her return.

"Anything I need to worry about?"

And Cameron, who will cross the divide in the middle of the night, keeping her toasty, warming her strained muscles and worn bones. Knowing his arm with lap across her side as a safety precaution when really it's all idle crap and the wanting between them is only growing stronger.

Harder.

"Not right now."

* * *

 _A/N: I actually have the next three chapters written already. I hope to update within a week or two._


	11. Over and Over Again

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 11

Over and Over Again

"Man, this planet is hot." He yanks off the hat that they were kind enough to lend him, he doesn't know if it's Mitchell's or not—he hopes it's not, he still doesn't know the guy very well, and he really doesn't want to get lice right now.

"Most of them are." The classicist sighs, digging around more in the dirt, hunched over like a kid trying to hide his chocolate bar at recess.

When he glances up, two suns glare back down, and he uses the back of his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. "No, I mean, it's really hot."

"You kind of get used to it after awhile." Colonel Carter grins at him as she types something up into her computer. She's perched up on a huge stone before the entrance to the ruins, the tips of her toes digging into the sand to keep her balanced.

The big guy says nothing—the last time he said anything was in the elevator when Aeryn was hallucinating—but stands rigid as a statue at the mouth of the cave, like he's just waiting for something bad to happen.

Maybe these guys have had enough bad run-ins that they just bring the big guy along for muscles, and it makes him want to laugh at first, but hell, they should probably start doing that when they take the transport pod to commerce planets.

Shit always goes down on commerce planets.

"So whatcha actually doing?" He gazes over Colonel Carter's shoulder, looking at a black screen with jumbles of alphanumeric code spilling on to it.

"I'm trying to access the program we created that mimics the frequency of the long-range communication stone so that we can use it as a dowsing rod of sorts." She turns the laptop towards him, pointing out an error in the code. "The problem is the frequency is also preventing the program from opening?"

"Why's that?"

"It's like having two positively charged magnets, they're both repelling each other."

"Maybe it has something to do with how we've slipped into Dante's Inferno."

Colonel Carter gives him a small chuckle.

The classicist who always checks out his wife, does not.

"Most of the planets in this galaxy are desert biomes, Crichton."

With pursed lips and widened eyes, he takes large, goofy steps towards the doctor who has planted himself in steaming desert sand at the bottom of a large column at the mouth of the ruins. They're never going to get inside, he knows this already, because if they did, they would flash fry in seconds.

"It's not really the heat that's bothering me."

"Could've fooled me." The doctor responds without even glancing up from ever so lightly brushing the stone.

"What bothers me, is that you wanted to drag Aeryn along too. Aeryn who can't handle the nice balmy summer day temperature you've got cooking up under that mountain."

"We're hoping to get the air conditioning fixed by the end of the week." Colonel Carter offers as she ceases her quick-fire typing.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I've sort of got my fingers crossed that we won't be here by the end to the week." He barleys his fingers for show with a smug, but patient grin. No wonder Aeryn has been in a lousy mood since they got here. He's uncomfortable with the heat, he can't imagine it making him ill, screwing up his memories, making him paranoid.

He just wants to go back.

He wants to jump in that ice bath with her—maybe not in the actual ice bath because he doesn't think the boys could take that much damage, but maybe he could convince her to use the shower. Lukewarm shouldn't be devastating and it would give him another excuse of getting his naked body next to hers—like he needs an excuse lately, the rate they're going at it, with no distractions, with barely any responsibilities, it's like a honeymoon sans the mai tais.

"If your wife would have just submitted to the medical scan—"

"No."

"—then we might have been able to figure out what's wrong with her—"

"Nothing is wrong with her."

"—and helped her fix it."

"First off, her name is Aeryn—"

Doesn't realize how loud he's getting—he must be getting pretty loud—because Colonel Carter snaps her laptop closed, scrounging around looking for her bag until the big guy hands it to her.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to get this program up and running until I find a way to backdoor it." She has that same tight grin on her face. The one where she's got to keep the peace, the one where she has to deal with all the spats—which seems to be true because he hasn't seen otherwise—when really there's something else she'd rather be doing. "I think we should just head back.

* * *

He finds out that there's a post-mission protocol.

Basically, he's got to go directly to a secured medical room for another one of those scans, to give another blood sample, and another swab. When he makes a joke about getting a cookie and a pin for donating so much blood, the doctor doesn't crack a grin, just snaps the rubber band away from his arms and tells him to hold the cotton ball there until the bleeding stops.

What's worse is that this medical room is an auxiliary room, so if they're infected with something, they don't drag it through the whole facility through the elevator and halls. He doesn't even get to see if Aeryn is still in the main medical area battling invasive questions about all the samples they took from her, still refusing to go into that full body scan through a silence strike.

What's the worst of all, is that he has to use showers, auxiliary showers, an all male shower room to bathe before he gets to go into any other part of the building, because again they don't want his dumbass dragging some foreign space virus throughout the facility, which he completely understands and supports.

What he doesn't understand is why he has to shower with twenty other guys and not his wife.

Why the classicist and not his wife?

What's the shittiest thing he's ever had to deal with, is after all the swabbing and soaping up with a guys he's already spent the better part of the day with, is the fact that they immediately have to have a mission debriefing after that, and all he can think about is how he wants to do a different kind of debriefing with Aeryn.

"So the planet didn't have a stone?" General Rygel sits at the front of the table with his hand crossed on top of it. He and Colonel Carter have been having the same back and forth for the last twenty minutes, while the rest of them just sit here—the doc adds in various useless tidbits every now and again.

"We don't know, Sir, we didn't get a chance to explore beyond the mouth of the cave."

"Why is that?"

"The computer program that emulates the frequency of the stone, wouldn't work with another stone in the area."

"So there is potentially a stone?"

"Well, it would give a reason to why the program isn't operative there, when it's still working fine here."

"Wait, Sam, don't you have that frequency running down in the lab?"

"Yes, but it was the frequency we used to create the program."

"Each stone has a different frequency?"

"No, the frequency is pretty much the same for—"

"Oh my God." He moans and slams his head into his hands on the table.

How can after the mission take up as much time as the mission?

"Maybe we should have a meeting on this tomorrow?" It's amazing, but he can hear the tight smile in the colonel's voice. He's definitely spent way too much time with them today. "When everyone has had a chance to think about it?"

"Agreed." The table shakes as General Rygel shoves his chair away. When he ducks his head back up, Colonel Carter stands at attention as the general rounds the table. "Bright and early tomorrow to continue this discussion."

The general stops at the side of his chair, just before the door, the door that this man has to walk through before he can bolt out and go find Aeryn and tell her how much he hates it here. "Maybe your wife will be able to join us on the next mission?"

Is about to reply that her name is Aeryn, and that if all of the planets are like standing on the unadulterated surface of a sun, that she won't be able to handle two minutes after exiting that wormhole they've got tamed that just screams murder whenever they use it.

But Colonel Carter replies for him. "Actually, Sir, Dr. Lam says she can't clear her medically for an indefinite period of time."

"What?" Asks with an upturned hand, exhausted and defeated. He just wanted to see Aeryn and maybe have a little hanky-panky in the shower. It shouldn't be this hard. It was never this hard on Moya.

"Oh, I'm sorry." The same smile. "I talked to Dr. Lam while she was doing my post-mission evaluation. I think it just has to do with the heat."

Great. Now he's excluded from the girl talk about his wife.

"Look—I don't—It's not even important how you know." He washes a hand over his face, his eyes sting and it feels just like having Deke here to scream in his ear, except it's a colonel who only has one smile, a guy who never talks but intimidates the hell out of him, a fuzzy general, and the classicist whose talking is the equivalent of Deke screaming in his ear. "I just want this to be done."

* * *

He's dismissed, and it's like being a kid in school when the bell rings. He has to try not to run in the hallway, to keep an orderly conduct, to follow protocols, but it doesn't stop him from mashing the button on the elevator twelve times, and then getting impatient and running down three flights of stairs taking them two at a time.

Assumes she's either in their suite, or the medical bay, and since Colonel Carter said she hadn't been cleared medically yet, he's got a good idea of where to start the goose chase. He bursts through the double doors, immediately hit with the strong smell of antiseptic and wet metal, and slides to a stop at the nurse's station.

Except there are no nurses there, but the doctor—the one who doesn't find any of his jokes funny, the one who left him to bleed out after she took a second blood sample—is sitting under the white light of a desk lamp and writing in her charts.

"Excuse—"

"She's been discharged back to your room." She doesn't even turn her head up from scratching a pen writing in what definitely can't be English. "Effectively grounded from missions until the foreseeable future."

"It's because of the heat sensitivity, right?"

"I'm not sanctioned to share that information with you."

"Are you kidding me?" He chuckles derisively and when she finally lifts her head from writing her chicken scratch notes, her eyes are narrowed in irritation. "I'm her husband."

"In your galaxy, under that jurisdiction, sure. Under the United States Government of this galaxy, on this planet, you're not."

He leans over the ledge of the counter, the light spilling over the top of the desk lap warming his chin like two suns did for almost eight hours. In slow and concise words, he restates. "I'm. Her. Husband."

The doctor shrugs, and puts her pen back to the paper, uninterested and finished with the subject. "Then I suggest you go ask her."

* * *

She's not up to her shoulders in an ice bath like he thought she would be. Instead he finds her laying on top of the bed sheets in a black cotton tank top and a pair of his official military undies. She's asleep with her one hand thrown over her stomach and almost turned over onto her side.

He tugs his shirt over his head, letting it drop to the floor as he fumbles with the buttons on the official military pants they've been kind enough to lend him. All his clothing smells like nothing, not like starch, or laundry detergent, or dryer sheets.

Not like baby puke.

Maybe he should've pushed for them to go into that temple today, he sort of lost sight on the mission—on finding those damn stones and returning to Moya, to his son. Misses the little warm bundle screaming in his arms as he tries to get the nipple end of the Capri Sun pouch into his mouth—how those Capri Suns cost them an arm and a leg because Peacekeepers aren't so keen about splitting from their official merchandise. How they don't even know if there's something wrong with the kid who just keeps crying. Is he colicky or does he have heat delirium? How they can't take him to a Diagnosian because they're few and far between since the war, and them actually showing their faces on any planet right now would be a bad idea.

"Your skin is a different color." Aeryn was asleep, but she's the lightest sleeper he's ever seen. She could hear a mouse fart three rooms down and bolt up in a sweat.

Always sweating now.

Her groggy voice carries over the small bedroom as he steps to the mini fridge in the corner, yanking out a small baggie of ice and jostling it in his hands. "The planet we went to might have actually been hell."

The mattress bounces with his weight as he sits on her side of the bed, her legs twisting from behind him into his lap, her skin shiny with sweat, but pure white, sans sunspots like the ones he's sure have popped up over his shoulders. "The heat was unbearable, the fact that they thought you could go there pissed me off."

"You're just oversensitive," she moans, half asleep, arching her back forward so her ass rests near his hip.

When her toes start to flicker and furl, to trace along his legs and pick at the material of his undies, he holds the baggie full of ice to the sole of her foot, listening to her squeak in surprise, but settle down against the temperature.

"That doctor, the medical one who likes to yell at us." Starts massaging the bottom of her feet, feeling her body unfurl more, her muscles slacken, a satiated moan escaping her lips. "She said you were grounded until further notice."

"Grounded?" She leans her shoulders back against the pillow and he traces the blush blooming across her chest with his eyes, while his fingers ring around her ankles.

"Yeah like—" he pauses his fingers until she gives him an impatient punt "—I forgot you're still not a hundred percent on the English thing. It means you're mountain bound."

"John." This sigh is with irritation and he knows he's gotta be direct now.

"You can't go through the gate."

"Yes." She's waking up now, trying to reel her legs back in, but he keeps her feet where they are and shuffles down the bed towards her. "That frelling woman refuses to allow me autonomy."

"She said it's because of medical reasons." She tries again to reclaim her legs, her muscles growing tense again, her jaw set as she turns away from him. She's been told by some other world authority that she's not fit for duty, he might as well give her a gun to fire to feel better.

Knows she won't tell him because she doesn't want to talk about it, so he asks for the answer. "Is it because of medical reasons? She wouldn't let me know because apparently our marriage isn't sanctioned here, which is a bad thing for you and that—"

She turns one her side, using her arm as a pillow and he almost gets a knee in the gut for it. "I despise that woman."

"I'm not a fan either." Taps his hand against her bare, smooth calf—still so in contrast with his own—thinks about the heat on the planet and the heat she must feel now and how those idiots actually intended to bring her there, and he can feel his own muscles stiffen. "Aeryn, you gotta fill me in here."

She sits up, and he lets her have her legs back, watching as they curl underneath her, as her tank tip sticks to her body under her breasts from sweat. "It's just the heat, John."

He leans over, pushing the hair plastered to her face in sweat back, but letting his fingers linger against her cheek. "They've seen what it does to me, that woman believes I'll be a risk if she allows me out."

Nodding, he slowly falls against her, the exhaustion from today still burning over his skin and into his muscles and even thought she's heating up like a protesting monk, she accepts him into her arms, one hand tracing the butt of his chin, and the other playing with his ear. He can hear her heartbeat from where he's leaning back against her and it does more to relax him than any lakah ever could.

When she sighs, it rides through his body, and he closes his eyes just as she places a kiss on the top of his head.

"I hate it here."

He tucks the baggie of ice against her thigh and she twitches before settling again.

"Me too."

* * *

The planet is exactly how the old woman described it to him when Vala was making a last-minute trip to 'freshen up'. He jiggled the baby in his arms the same way he saw her do early and sighed, relieved when the little guy didn't immediately start screaming.

He definitely has a favorite parent.

And it is definitely not him.

And despite this kid not actually being his—although sometimes he sees his stupid, cheeky grin pop up on the kid's face—it still bugs him.

"Are you listening to me, Colonel?" The old woman was inches away from him and smelled like his momma's spice rack.

"Not really," muttered and peeked around the corner for any sight of Vala, or Chiana for that matter. Seems the 'women going to the bathroom together' thing jumps galaxies too.

"It is of utmost importance—" the old lady squirmed her way around him, trying to get his attention. Finally, she huffed standing on spot. "You _must_ listen."

"Look—I still don't know if we trust you or not."

"In that case, I suggest you decide quickly."

"Well, it's not like we've had a ton of free time to discuss it."

But then the old woman put her hands on him, not threatening, not like she was with Vala when he first encountered her in the kitchen. She held his biceps to still him, weak, frail arms just like his grandma. Her third eye opened, and he instinctively darted his eyes away because he wasn't sure if it was for brainwashing or not, but when he glanced back it was glowing red and her wrinkled face was nothing but serious.

"You must not let her get out of your sight."

"Okay." Nodded, tried to pry her off, but she stayed put.

"Colonel, you must not let her stray."

He told her he has a pretty good record leading all the sheep from his flock home safely, and if she was going to say something else, she never did because Vala rounded the corner, dressed up in a long leather coat that is vibrant red on the inside. Her hair was down, and straight, and he didn't recognize her—not the hair or the clothes, but her expression was so serious, so unlike her.

When she bent to take Deke's hand and babble out some more sweetness to him, he noticed how pale she was, how pronounced the bags under her eyes were, which was weird because last night was the best night's sleep he's had since getting here—maybe even a little before.

Never got the chance to ask her about it, because Chiana slunk around the corner, and handed them both a weapon she called a 'pulse pistol', showing them with her pinkie and ring fingers bent back, where to holster it.

The weapons shouldn't be a problem, they shouldn't really have to use them, because as far as he's concerned this is a level 1 mission. Get in, secure the goods, get out. Work using developed disguises and try to blend into the crowd. Both the old woman and Chiana had taught them a few mannerisms in the last few days, enough to lie his way out of a wet paper bag, at least.

But the planet was overwhelming. Immediately after landing, securing the pod, and filtering into the Grand Central station of a backwashed and dangerous planet, Chiana, cocked her head to the side observing something in the din as they walked casually out into the marketplace.

Then his first sheep started to stray.

"Chiana." He shot his arm out to grab her, while still trying to stay relatively close to Vala, who was uncharacteristically quiet.

"Look, just go get those frelling stones—"

"Easy, if we knew where to go—"

"Back corner stall, the vendor has eye tentacles." Somehow she slipped from his grasp and when he wrenched forward to reel her back in she dodged his hand. "I'll meet you back at the ship in half an arn."

"Chiana?"

"Don't talk to anyone you don't have to."

"Chiana!" He shouted as she slipped away, and her unusual gray skin actually disappeared in the crowd. "Great."

When he turned back to tell Vala the new itinerary, she wasn't where he left her. "Oh, come on."

Now he bumps his way over to the spot and spins a quick 360, taking in the various appearances and noises going on around him. The atmosphere is tight—almost suffocating—like a carnival at night, overwhelming of sounds, smells, and sights. He's about to go into team leader panic mode where he just grinds his teeth until he fixes the problem or runs out of teeth, but someone finally tosses him a win, because he catches a glimpse of that bright red on the inside of her coat rustling with her movements down an alley across the quad.

"Vala."

He bolts after her, ramming into several aliens, most of them way bigger than he is, and steps in a gross green goo that's collected in a stagnant puddle, but these aren't his shoes, so what does he really care because he's only a few feet behind her now, the sway of her straight hair entrancing, but her footsteps unsure.

"Vala." Reaches for her, slipping his hand into hers and she starts, first flickering her fingers away, but then twitching them shut around his. "What the hell are you doing?"

He wants to reprimand her, not because they're still a team and on a mission and she needs to listen to the itinerary and not screw around like the has the penchant to do, but because she scared the shit out of him. What if he didn't see her at the last second? What if she was scooped up by people who hate this Crichton guy? Wants to yell but he doesn't because she's still really pale, but the seriousness is gone from her face replaced with something he thinks is pain. Drooping browns and glassy eyes. Without thinking, his hand touches the side of her face, cups her cheek finding her skin cold and a bit clammy.

"Are you okay?"

Doesn't know when he adopted the new hobby of needing to know how she is at all times, but she smiles at him wistfully, putting her hand against his, then guiding it from her face. "I'm fine."

"Where were you going?" Ducks around her, examining the rest of the alley which is definitely not as lit as where they are now, there's a distant sound of dripping water over the din and grumbles of the marketplace.

"I—" she turns her head, glancing into the darkness too, but almost like she's searching for something. "I thought I saw someone I knew."

"Who could you possibly know here?" Doesn't temper himself on time and a bit of his anger seethes out, and almost as quickly as Chiana disappeared into the crowd, her expression falls again, her gaze downtrodden.

"You're right. I'm—"

"It's okay." Can't hear the apology, because something isn't right with her, something is off and it's dangerous and the bad feeling he has in his gut about this place kicks up to ten. Instead, he takes her hand gently, holding on and guiding her out of the alley and back into the overstimulation of the marketplace. "You just gave me a scare."

"You got scared?"

"Yeah, I couldn't find you," speaks preoccupied as they weave through aliens and people who look like normal humans that he forgets the name of. A group of four stand to the side, have on vests very similar to the one he saw in the pile of Crichton's clothing still rotting on the ground after four days. He makes brief eye contact with one of them, a guy with a messed-up face, and thinks it's an immediate mistake because he can feel the guy's eyes on him even after they round the corner.

"You were concerned?" Doesn't have to look at her to know she's grinning, that wicked smirk that tugs at the corner of her lip when she's amused. He's so glad that everyone else is having such a great time on this planet.

"Yeah, if I lost you, think of all the paperwork I'd have to do when I got back." There's a brief hitch in their gait, where it turns more into him dragging her for a step or two. Knows that he hurt her feelings and doesn't know why he did it. Sees Jackson do it daily, hourly, just tear her down instead of risking being embarrassed at a genuine response.

He's about to apologize when she snarks, "how could that possibly be a waste of your time, it's not like you have much of a social life."

"I get out more than you do, Princess." Again, said with preoccupation and the malice he can't stop channeling because it's routine, it's natural to want to hurt her instead of admitting how it felt to think she was gone, admitting how good she looks in a long ass coat, how her hair is enamoring and he wants to run his fingers through it.

"Oh, you may, but I doubt you entertain as much."

That, that makes him stop and she stumbles into place beside him. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean, my Dear Colonel."

"This." He gestures between them. "Is not a conversation we should be having here."

Wants to add 'or ever' but instead just continues to walk towards the stall they're looking for—the one in the corner has to be their stall, it's the only one with a guy who has tentacles for eyes—purposefully not taking her hand in his own.

"Well, I'll just have to regale you about my various SGC trysts as a bedtime story—"

Ignores her response as she bounces into step beside him at the stall front, and more importantly, he shoves down the way it makes him feel nasty, like he can feel the jealousy creeping up the back of his throat.

The tentacle guy somehow knows they're there, because he turns around, his face almost entirely tentacles, but with a seemingly normal body, normal hands with five fingers and clean-cut nails that he digs into the wood on the ledge of his stall.

"What do you want?" It's a gurgle, like trying to talk with a mouth full of water, but those microbes must be translating the hell out of it because he can definitely understand him.

Before he can respond, Vala opens her mouth, her fingers also set against the ledge, and that wide beam shining on her face. "We're looking to procure somewhat of a rare oddity and were told that you were the man to seek out."

He rolls his eyes, but before jumps in to save the overflattering sentence from costing them a stone and a way home, the tentacle guy leans in on an elbow, the cadence of his voice dropping the gruffness. "Is that so?"

"Yes, I've asked around quite a bit, and everyone has referred me back to you. It's really quite impressive."

"I suppose I could help out a pretty woman, such as yourself."

And he should've known Vala could charm a guy with no face or eyes.

Turning away from the interaction, half amused, half still stomping the envy back down into his gut, he notices the four people from early, the one guy with the gnarly face, all red and pink splotches, all wrinkled—all burned up—have formed a blockade at the mouth of the entrance to this side of the market place.

Only when the burnt faced guy catches him staring this time, he points directly back.

"Oh shit." He spins back, catching Vala's coquettish and vapid giggle as she places her hand near tentacle guy's. "Vala, we gotta—"

"John Crichton." Burn Face shouts at him as he starts to take bounding steps into the marketplace. The other three follow staggered, and at a quick arm signal, they all whip out their weapons, aiming directly at them. The crowd notices and starts to rile up, scattering around like ants.

The only one who doesn't notice is her.

As the first shot goes off, he hooks an arm around her waist, lugging her to the side, behind a large stack of shipping cartons as all the gun blasts trail behind them.


	12. Kindred Spirits

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 12

Kindred Spirits

She dreams of Deke most nights. She's not used to having dreams unless they're engaged by a third party. Rarely, she'll have the odd nightmare which she can not control. Her physiology, her genetic makeup predisposed her to sleeping for mere hours at a time, able to fall asleep with ease, and wake at any questioning sound. However, her genetic makeup has changed now. She's birthed a child, a hybrid offspring which remodeled her with more hormones that cause her to constantly be in tears at the first tick of frustration, that cause her to be more tender when remembering the fuzz on her son's head.

Hormones that set off her anger because, again, everyone is impeding her from getting him back.

John curls up behind her, his body hot and heavy in the throes of the last few minutes of sleep before the device beside the bed rings, and either Colonel Carter or Dr. Jackson calls them down to talk for hours because all humans do is frelling talk. The dialogue they hold lasts until they've unanimously agreed on the best course of action which they knew of in the beginning. As they discuss the planetary missions, they excuse her from the room because since she doesn't have leave clearance, she doesn't need to be informed of such things.

John is hot, but he slings his arm over her bare thighs and despite the hiss she releases from being uncomfortable, the action soothes her. She's enraged, has been slowly fanning her fingers for the last hour while thinking about the situation, and how once again, she's marginalized.

The medical doctor has absolutely no authority over her. Wagers she doesn't know how to use a weapon, and in hand-to-hand combat, believes she could take her down in the matter mere of seconds—less if it needs to be done fatally—yet in this world, that medical doctor has the authority to tell a military team comprised of colonels and learned personnel that she is unable to attend to their missions due to biological issues.

Causes uneasiness, that all the members of this team know of her weakness to heat, and if they choose to, they could simply turn up the frelling heat and let her become nothing. She's seen them dart their eyes away, the way the doctor scoffs when she needs to rest, or excuse herself to a nearby refrigeration unit, or return to the room for one of her three, nearing four, ice baths a day.

John shifts behind her again, his hand slipping from her hip to fall over her stomach.

He doesn't know.

There's no way he could possibly know and she's not going to tell him.

With Deke they sacrificed almost all they had, not only to have their son, but to ensure his safety. Were willing to give up their lives, his life, to secure the peaceful upbringing he required. But when she found out on the command carrier, when she knew she was carrying the child of a man who stood within arm's length, yet was dead, she didn't know what to do because she had never wanted to be a mother.

She didn't abort the baby because if either John were beside her, he wouldn't allow her to do anything so rash before they talked about it for monens first—a solar cycle to be exact. If either John were beside her, there would be no reason to abort the baby at all.

She didn't abort Deke because she wasn't ready to, and as she worked as an assassin, the small pin prick of pressure plagued on the back of her mind. How women sit with the pressure for up to seven cycles is ridiculous, because she barely lasted a cycle with the little bundle of cells pushing in her pelvis, not hard, just constant, just telling her that he was still here.

Lost that pinch on Katratzi.

Doesn't remember Katratzi, at least that's what she tells John if he asks, but she remembers every single part of it, the pain, the heat, the pleading, the breakdown. Knowing no one was on her side, knowing a dead man she loved more than she'd loved anything in her life's seed had stuck and that was why she was enduring such torture.

Knowing exactly what they wanted from her, so she would not, while she still held a breath left in her body, give them up.

When she woke in John's arms as he tucked her into her bed, and she flailed against him because she couldn't tell directions, couldn't tell feelings and truths and placements. Could distinguish that pestering pressure that had been in her pelvis once she was told she was with child, and she panicked and asked afraid to hear the answer, afraid to know if she had lost. At John's reassurance she found immediate relief, and he thought her wild, crazed from her time spent in torture, yet she was confused by the relief. Initially, she just didn't want the Scarrans to get what they wanted but being told the baby was safe offered a different level of relief.

After she and John were reconstituted, she couldn't feel the pressure then either. Left it for an arn or two while they got settled with the Eidelons, but the constant pinch never returned, and her stomach dropped as she tugged John aside and whispered with a cracking voice that she needed to see the Diagnosian. He agreed, happy laughing, holding her hand and swinging it, until she brought the pendulum motion to a halt. Her eyes explaining what words cracked her throat. Could only tell him that she felt different, that the little pressure they'd been so coy with, that they'd fought about for the last cycle, had depleted.

If she tells John about the baby, more so the baby-in-waiting, he's going to be as stupidly optimistic as he always is and attempt to find a way to release it when these humans know nothing about her physiology. All action and grins, and tearful chuckles, until she has to ask him, how exactly will they take this baby home? How are they going to raise this child and Deke, who would be born monens apart, when he doesn't help with Deke in the first place, and she knows why.

His arm curls around her stomach, dragging her back to him, and she rolls her eyes though he can't see them. He's awake, radiating heat, and adjusting himself against her so she's well aware of his arousal. He drops a kiss to the base of her neck, his nose nuzzling behind her ear, and a fragment of her is still surprised at the gentleness he exudes when the majority of her previous recreation partners were forceful, greedy—the way she was until she spent half a cycle on Talyn.

"Morning Baby." His voice is a low grumble in her ear rolling up from the back of his throat. His fingertips drag over the exposed skin on her stomach, making her shudder, as he kisses her shoulder. "You're getting hot."

"You're already are hot." She twists, resting on her back, viewing his face through the highlighted panel on the wall meant to simulate natural light. He looks green and gray and drops a kiss to her collarbone, his tongue tracing, making her shudder again.

His hand falls to her thigh, tracing the inside upwards until he finds the band of her undergarment, stopping abruptly, fingering the stitching while leaning up on his free arm. "What happened to the ice baggie?"

"It melted in the middle of the night from your nuclear body heat." She shoves him, partly wanting away, feeling the sweat at the base of her skull, down the back of her neck and the small of her back, but he grabs her hand instead, placing a kiss on the palm, and most of her is happy he does.

He keeps her hand against his lips, holds it stable while he glances up at her with those innocent eyes that always make her anger sieve a bit. She sighs, taking the hand and drawing a finger over his chin, pushes her fingers into his hair to clear where it's settled in his sleep. "I put the baggie on the floor so if it ruptured, we wouldn't be sleeping in drenched sheets all night."

He slants himself into her touch, eyes closed and happy as she pets him like a domesticated animal. That too, makes her smile. "Why didn't you go get another one?'

"Because I was tired, John."

Her hand drops and he reopens his eyes.

"Fair enough."

He crawls over her to grab the device from the side table just as it rings, his body so hot, so heavy, so hard as she twists to get away from him without wanting to but needing to. He speaks grunts and single words into the phone before depressing a button and tossing it to the mattress. "I've got to be in debriefing in two arns."

"You'd best be getting ready then." She stands, stretching, rolling out her shoulders, shifting her neck, bending at her hips, knowing what her body is doing to his from feeling the weight of his gaze upon her. She glances up from where she's positioned bent to her feet. "You get fussy when you don't have breakfast."

"I—" The bed squeaks as he shifts to her side, to the edge, walking on his knees, his eyes never leaving her. "I was thinking about taking a nice cold shower."

"I think a cold shower is exactly what you need right now." She stands throwing her hair back over her shoulders in a swoop, knowing it's enticing to him, knowing that he will be late in two arns—and part of her thinks of their son, on Moya, in the command room where they left him, their counterparts holding him, playing with him, feeding him, and she grows envious of something she was only allowed to have for a monen, grows irate because she spent so long birthing that child, was in such excruciating pain, and yet someone else now cares for him.

"I wasn't thinking of going into that shower alone." John lowers himself to laying on his stomach on the mattress, his eyes level with her behind, still enamored.

"And I think that—" His hand smooths it's way over the back of her thigh, upwards until it rests on her ass, warmth exuding through her, yet also arousing her. "John."

"We can be quick."

"That's not very enticing."

"I'll wash your hair."

"You know that's for your pleasure, not mine."

She busies herself collecting his dropped clothing from off the floor as he watches her with the same gaze, using it as a scheme, trying to get her to relent. "Aeryn, Baby, come on."

"I will recreate in the shower with you right now if you promise me I will see our son in the next solar cycle."

"I promise you'll see Deke by tomorrow morning." Speaks the words so quickly, she isn't sure he understands the gravity of them, doesn't realize what she's asking from him.

"John."

He snags her by the hips as she walks by the bed, holds her in place as she tries to continue to tidy up her husband's mess. "Aeryn." He jostles her hips, and his thumb is almost directly over the pinch, like he knows, like he can sense it as well, yet she knows he can't. "Aeryn, look at me."

Rolls her eyes before giving him the contact he's requested, and sighs deeply so he knows he's on the cusp of an argument with her.

"I have this feeling—"

"Every time you have a frelling feeling it's either wormholes or—"

"Just listen." He laughs shimmying her hips again and when she moves to smack him away, he tugs her closer. It is entirely too warm now. "I have this feeling that we're gonna see Deke real soon. I don't know why, it's just a hunch."

"You and your hunches."

"You love my hunches."

"I also love our son."

"Me too, and I know we're gonna get back to him soon, so a little hanky panky in the shower isn't going to mean boo—"

"If it isn't going to mean anything, then why—"

"Aeryn, I got ninety minutes left." He holds the back of his hand to her forehead and she tries to duck out of the way. "And you need to have an ice something to cool down because your short-term memory is going to go soon. Can we just win-win this thing and hop in the shower?"

She huffs, still holding two of his dirty socks in her hand, turning her attention away from him, but feeling him practically vibrate as he keeps hold of her free hand. "Go and start the shower."

It's not entirely giving in as she was going to have a shower, and she would enjoy a good frell before spending the day cooped up in the infirmary with an angry doctor who is still trying to persuade her to get the body scan, or Dr. Jackson's lab, as she's supposed to do research looking for the location of the stones, yet she doesn't know what they are officially called, and while her reading level of English is passable, most of the texts are written in an absurd language.

"Water's getting cold, Aeryn." He calls to her, flinging out his dirty undergarment, before proving his words with a loud yowl.

She will not see her son tonight, nor likely not tomorrow, she knows this because despite all her changes, she is still a soldier, she still remains pragmatic and realistic.

Yet, with John still shouting from the shower, freezing with no benefit as she's not there, she absorbs his optimism and pads toward the washroom.

* * *

"Hush. Hush."

She bounces the child in her arms as he slowly begins to wake. Pulled him ensconced and slumbering from his makeshift bassinet. Wrapped shaky hands around his small, warm body and tucked him against her chest because she can't be alone right now, and she can't be in the room with the others, so he will simply have to do.

"Hush. Hush."

Speaks to him though he is barely awake, slits of her own shade of blue eyes looking up at her in curiosity, in confusion, before closing again, and drool dripping out of a ruby red gummy mouth.

There was so much red.

Even more blue.

The sounds of the pistols, the jolt of Mitchell dragging her to cover, and sitting with her behind storage crates, asking for a bit of her luck because they could use it. The group—there was four she thinks, one with a very crispy face—firing on them, shooting through the crates, and when Mitchell threw his arm over her head to block it from a blast, to force her more into cover, the shot broke through the storage containers and burst directly into his shoulder.

He toppled, howled with pain, his pulse pistol dropping to the ground and his hand flying to his injured shoulder. The blast was bright green, acidic, burning through the clothes he'd borrowed and now can't return in any shape. His skin appeared fine at first until they were on the transport back to Mayo, when his skin started bubbling and burning, until the blisters started spreading.

She knows because she feels it too.

"Hush. Hush."

Chiana wasn't conscious enough to explain to them who these people were, or why they hated them so much, just showed up behind them on scheduled to reunite and leave—hopefully with a stone—and instead was fired upon. Hit twice, once in the abdomen, and once in the side of the neck, her blue blood spilled all over the marketplace ground, while shoppers screamed and ran for cover.

She froze, had reeled Mitchell back in, cradling his injured shoulder to her chest the same way she does with little Deke, and she froze, unable to plan a strategy, to think of what to do—knowing what she must do. She reached for the gun, ready to leave him, ready to leave Chiana, and Deke, and Pilot, and even that old woman who might have her trust. She stood, ready to draw the fire away so the injured could escape.

But he grabbed her by the bottom of her black t-shirt and yanked her back down, grumbling something along the lines of 'don't you dare.' He snapped the pistol from her and did something with the cartridge that caused it to become explosive after he threw it—

"Hush. Hush."

—the aftershock allowing him to haul Chiana up over his uninjured shoulder, getting blue blood all along his shirt and skin. He didn't have a free hand to reach behind for her, and while she trailed, she became distracted by the same person who had distracted her before, with the same dark brown eyes she doesn't know how she got.

She became distracted—

"Hush. Hush."

—and was fired upon.

Mitchell missed it, and she held in the howl which he so freely let loose, pulled her borrowed long coat closer to her body so he didn't see the piece of her t-shirt burned away at her side. Limped uphill after him through the central hub and back into the vehicle they call a transport pod that neither of them knows how to fly but was programmed to automatically return to Mayo.

Listened wide-eyed, staring at the bronzed interior while he contacted Pilot and explained their situation. Stood completely stationary within the pod and listened as his voice became further and further away, until he yanked her t-shirt down again, forcing her to deal with Chiana's wounds the best she could.

He carried Chiana to the infirmary where the old woman was waiting and she ran to the refresher to wash the blue blood from her hands, as she'd done several times as Qetesh, before Qetesh in a river by her home.

Changed her clothing and grabbed the baby because she was so scared—he must be scared. She was in shock and so the baby must be too. So in pain as her side bubbled—

"Hush. Hush."

"Vala."

His tone is different, not the frantic, demanding one he used aboard the pod, or to her behind the storage containers. His form is hunched a bit and he's mislaid his shirt, smelling like the refresher just as she did an hour ago, maybe two, maybe ten.

"I'm—I'm trying to get him to sleep."

"Well, then you're done."

"What—"

"Kid's asleep." He points to Deke as he perches on the edge of their shared three bed, grunting a bit in pain as he does.

"Oh." Glances down and Deke's eyes—her eyes—are closed, happily slumbering in her arms. Moves him slowly towards the bassinet because there's no reason for her to continue to hold the child, who looks like her, who looks like Mitchell, but is not their own.

Too many faces rivaling her own.

"I just didn't want him to be alone."

Mitchell nods, he has a container beside him on the bed, and he's trying to stretch out his arm to reach his wound. "I understand."

And something snaps in her.

Replaces where she is, in her surroundings, whom she's with. The pain her side pales, not longer boiling. She crosses the room, moving the container away from him, and gesturing for him to turn around. "How is Chiana?"

He appears surprised at first by her sudden revival, but does as she requests, turning his bare back towards her. "She's stable for now, that old woman is working some witchcraft on her."

"I'm guessing she's the one who's gifted you with this ointment?" Three of her fingers dip into the salve, it's cold, almost numbing, and smells vaguely of peppermint.

"It's supposed to help with the gunshot wounds." He hisses, whether it be from the temperature or the contact as she rubs a thin layer over his blistered skin. "Apparently, we were hit with special bullets that actually eat away at the skin like acid."

She knows that. She can feel that.

His hand reaches back to steady hers when she removes it. Their eyes catch and she sees all the panic he's feeling fill up behind blue eyes. He holds her wrist for far too long to be explainable, then adds, "that old woman said you gotta put on a thick layer of it."

"Yes." She agrees as if she knows this to be true, and spreads the salve thicker across his back, past the boarders of the encroaching wound, and onto his healthy skin in case the tissue is already compromised.

When she removes her hand, when his back is sufficiently covered in the ointment, he turns his head back to her again. "Vala?"

Wants to lie to him and tell him she's fine, when the wound along her flank is eating away at her, burning her to such a degree that she doesn't know why she isn't illuminated.

"Who did you see in the market?"

"What?"

She knows exactly what he's asked.

"You chased after someone on the planet before—" he pauses and sighs into his hand, before standing and marching to the pile of unused clothing, fishing out a black t-shirt "—who did you think you saw?"

"Noranti said that planet has a very strong spiritual energy—that it can sometimes dredge up hallucinations of those from our pasts." She wipes her hands off on her pants and begins to walk towards the door.

"Okay—" he lengthens the word, watching her, narrowing his eyes the same way Deke did a few minutes earlier. "Who did you see?"

She pauses at the door, raising her hand to engage the opening mechanism hurts, but she stifles the flinch. "I saw someone from my past."

Adria.

She saw Adria as she did the first time. The tiny child who healed her ailing abdomen too well and made her adequately infertile until an old woman in a different galaxy force fed her sludge and suddenly the fertility quite literally started gushing out of her.

Small, perfect Adria with the dark mysterious eyes she always loved. Not her own, not constantly sad and red from crying. Her pale little face, and a tiny hand beckoning her down an alley and she had to follow because she didn't when she was taken, and perhaps she could have changed her. Perhaps she could have been a real mother instead of a bystander.

"Vala—"

"I'm going to go check on Chiana."

It's a weak lie at best, but he's too tired to call her on it, probably even noticing that she heads in the wrong direction once out of their shared quarters. She holds her breath as each step becomes more excruciating—although sometimes she can accommodate the pain and it's not so much—until she reaches the room they arrived in.

As she crosses into the command center, or whatever vernacular they use for it, she rifles around in the pocket of her long leather coat, something she didn't discard with good reason, because as she was sweet talking the gentleman with the tentacle face—he really was quite a gentleman, and if given more time, she might have been interested in him—she swiped the stone clear off his table just before the gunfight broke out.

Before she was covered in red and blue and burning at her side.

They've marked the appropriate grooves as Noranti incessantly pointed at two of them for the three days travel it took to get to Valdun, shouting happily words even the translator bots couldn't correctly phrase, and the word swan.

The table wobbles as she leans into it, not hesitating for even a second, and the stone slips in easily, glowing blue, calming and enchanting.

Before she loses consciousness she notices for the first time a battle scar—what looks like an attack from a sword—across the tabletop.


	13. Celestial Bodies

_A/N:Just a quick FYI, I'm up to chapter 19 in this story, but writing will probably slow down as, again, I have no clue what I'm doing. I've exercised all the plot I had, and can't write more until I think up more to write._

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 13

Celestial Bodies

Aeryn starts screaming.

He's in the bedroom—yanking on the uniform they insist he wear even though he's not a part of their happy space program stating it's for safety—it's not, it's for conformity—and his wife starts screaming bloody murder from the bathroom.

She never screams.

Well, if she's having a kid—or if she's being tortured.

But she's screaming—almost high-pitched.

Almost girly.

"Aeryn?" He yells back, fumbling steps as he tries to yank on pants one leg at a time that are too loose after only wearing leathers for the last four years. He trips, catches himself with the tips of his fingers against the floor, and pushes himself up into a full scramble as he tears open the bathroom door. "Aeryn, what—"

She's standing in the corner, her chest pumping, her hair and body dripping water all over the floor. She's sort of hunched over, each of her hands covering delicate features that he knows inside and out—that he's friends with, that he would gladly invite to poker night. There's more water on the floor than there is in the tub where ice cubes still float languidly—he slipped in a bag, got the tub ready for her, smiling and satisfied after their shower excursion and tried to keep his mind in that headspace instead of thinking of spending the better half of the day with the team again.

He chances a step forward, an amused grin tugging on his lips. "Honey, what—"

"Mitchell, what the hell are you doing?"

"You screamed like a banshee so I—wait, Mitchell?"

"While I understand I'm the content of your dreams." She's shivering back against the wall now, visibly shaking as lazy drops of water still streak down her arms. "Can you put that aside for a moment to find me something? A towel, a blanket, perhaps dirty laundry."

He can still see the scar on Aeryn's stomach, the place she was stabbed by Larraq—or the virus formally known as Larraq—and it's Aeryn's body. Like he's said, he knows her dips, her hips, and her nips intimately.

"Mitchell," her voice is parsed by her chattering teeth. "Please."

"Holy frell." It's more of a mutter to himself, but he repeats it, just so she can hear. "You're not Aeryn."

"No, I'm not, and I'm freezing off my—"

"Oh God." Realizes that there's someone possessing Aeryn in the bathroom—nude. Probably woke up in the shock of an ice bath. He opens the cupboard and yanks out two towels, tossing one to her, which like Aeryn—because she is Aeryn—he thinks she's a she—swallows up most of her body.

She sighs, body still high-power shivering, as he approaches her with the second towel. "Who are you?"

Her face scrunches into confusion, and he's never seen Aeryn make that face in all their time together, a little disgusted, a little playful, and it makes him chuckle. "I'm Vala, who else would I be."

"Well, Aeryn for one."

"Aer—oh Office Sun?" Turns towards the mirror, wiping the remaining water off her face with the towel she snagged from him and he didn't even notice. "Really Mitchell, we have to talk about your conduct. This voyeurism of yours has taken on an identity far to—" She stops herself midsentence and turns back to him just watching her. Her body moves differently, not as stiff, not as beaten down. More musically, like dance, steps light and bounce, lips pink and grinning, eyelashes fanning and blinking with those Bette Davis's. "You're not Mitchell are you?"

She sounds vaguely concerned because, well, he did just see her naked, but technically, it's not cheating or even lecherous, because that's his wife's body that she's hijacked—right? "Are you the look-a-like?—the chick that classicist is obsessed with?"

Clasps her hand together for a sec, showing all her pearly whites, and then bouncing by him. "Daniel talked about me? Did he miss me? What did he say?"

She's surveying the room now, the unmade bed, the discarded clothing Aeryn didn't get around to picking up. She gives him a suggestively cocked eyebrow.

"The doctor really remains neutral to bad on the things that he says about you, but he doesn't stop talking about you, or checking out my wife for that matter."

"Oh, he checked me out?" She clasps her hands again, and the towel starts to slip.

"Hey, Wardrobe Malfunction." Ducks his head away, not even really knowing why now, but it still feels like the right thing to do. "Maybe grab some clothes?"

"Excellent idea, Darling." She follows his finger where he points, tugging open a drawer and finding only t-shirts and shorts, because it's all Aeryn can stand. "This is not her attire—is it?"

"Yeah, she has a sensitivity to the heat."

"That's why your quarters are so cold."

His quarters with the two-bed—that stupid tiny bed and the space bassinet for his son that doesn't stop crying and— "You've been there."

"Yes."

Turns his back as the thump of the towel hits the ground and the ruffling of shorts against her legs echoes in the room. "Is Deke okay?"

"Oh, he's a wonderful baby. He has your wife's eyes you know."

"I know."

She grins to, pointing to him. "He has that smile too."

"So what's the good word from the SS Moya—"

But she's too preoccupied preening herself in the mirror—trying to make the shorts and the shirt longer—to hear him. "Does you wife really get to waltz around in such little clothing? I'm not allowed to run out of my room in my jammy jams when I have a bad dream and need to know the world's not ending—"

"Can you just tell me—"

"But Mrs. Cretin can just bounce around—"

"It's Crichton and she doesn't bounce—"

"With little shorts and more of a selection of shirts than I've ever received—"

Moves with a hop in her step towards the closet, tugging out one of the zip-up sweaters with the military insignia on it.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Scantily clad may work wonders for your wife, but as soon as I step my behind out of this room, at least a dozen people will go tell me to change." She closes the closet, which bangs against the mound of hangers sticking out, the door still ajar.

"You're going to overheat, you're in my wife's body—"

"Really?" She glances down, spinning, examining, and then presses by him. "How can you tell?"

"Scar right hip." Birth mark on the sweet spot of her left, but that's just something for him and Aeryn.

Without hesitation, she yanks down the shorts, causing him to flinch and spin with his back to her again.

"Huh, you're absolutely right. We must have switched temporal positions and not physical ones."

He stops in the doorway of their bedroom, watching her open the minibar fridge where they keep cooling packs and bags of ice. "You know about the transferring?"

"Oh Darling, I'm the resident expert." She stands, and pouts, and it's another face he's never seen Aeryn make, so innocent, naïve, bratty. "Is there a reason this food receptacle is full of ice?"

"I told you, Aeryn has sensitivities to heat she needs—"

"It is rather hot in here now that you mention it." Fans the collar of her sweater, glances at the ducts in the ceiling. "Have they not fixed the heat yet?"

"You know damn well that they're never going to fix the heat."

"Hmm," she hums, slipping by him and into the small living room, knowingly punching in a code on the door. "Perhaps they're more concerned with collecting their two marooned operatives."

The door opens and she slips out into the hallway fast enough to almost disappear in a crowd of uniformed clad men. He jogs to catch up with her, slowing at her side like an old farm dog. "I think they're keeping it hot in here to keep Aeryn under control."

"Don't be ridiculous." She waves him off, stopping at the elevators and fanning the still zipped sweater collar. "It's still hot because the Tau'ri are completely inept when it comes to prioritizing."

"You think they got bigger fish to fry?"

"I think that in the matter of days, they will realize it truly needs to be seen to."

Is gonna ask the what exactly she means, because it's cryptic enough to be mildly threatening, but the elevator doors ding open with the classicist standing inside, his nose so deep in a big old book that his glasses are threatening to fall off.

"Daniel." She beams striding into the elevator with her arms wide for an embrace. "I heard that you were checking me out."

He's about to grab her, tug her away from the good old doctor—it is still Aeryn's body, after all—but surprisingly the doctor keeps her at arm's length. She huffs out a laugh, but by the sound of her voice, no longer commanding and upbeat, she's obviously hurt. "Didn't you miss me at all?"

The classicist ignores her completely, instead speaks directly to him, "What's going on?"

"This is your girl, Vala." He drops a hand on her shoulder, mostly to sneak around her and actually into the elevator, but also to gauge her heat, which is climbing, but not yet dangerous. She doesn't seem to notice or care that much. "In Aeryn's body of course."

The classicist's eyes dart from him to her—she's got that bright grin again—then back to him. "You're kidding me."

"Perhaps you'd like me to recite one of your credit card numbers?"

"Alright, enough Vala." The doc adjusts the glasses on his face, his nose a little shiny with sweat. "When did this happen?"

"About half an hour ago." She turns her back to the classicist, now uninterested, watching the numbers count down instead and suddenly he feels like he's watching a soap opera play out before him.

She's dramatic as hell and he's a massive jerk, and they're already butting heads.

They have to have slept together or are sleeping together now.

"Half an hour? What have you even been doing?"

"If you must know, I've been situating myself, galaxy jumping isn't exactly easy work, Daniel."

"Were you even going to bother telling me you were back? Or were you saving that for when you were more situated?"

Not this guy. At least not with his wife's body.

Without missing a beat, she glances over her shoulder, her face as stoic as Aeryn's, and she deadpans, "no, I was going to come find you after I ate, why do you think I engaged the button for the commissary level?"

He doesn't know much, but he's starting to like this lady.

* * *

"Vala?"

Realizes he's dozed off, the lights have been lowered and the privacy curtain engaged. At the foot of the bed, Deke switches between snoring and gurgling, and as long as he's not crying, the kid can make whatever noise he wants.

"Vala?"

Asks again to the space he knows is empty except for his toothless roomie, still happily asleep in the makeshift cot. Tries to remember what happened—the shoot out. Chiana unconscious and banged up—her wanting to sacrifice her damn self again and he doesn't know what happened to make that her first course of action, but he knows it's going to take years to ensure her that she's not everyone's kamikaze plan.

He sits up, ignoring the pain in his thigh, drilling through the spent muscle from carrying Chiana, from dragging Vala, from just booting it the hell out of the cesspool of a marketplace. Why did the old lady even suggest that damn planet? Moves to jab a thumb into his muscles to offer relief, but his shoulder flares up, not bad—definitely not as bad as it was—more like someone slapped his Miami Beach sunburn. It smells like peppermint and vaguely like her—and he doesn't want to know why he knows her scent so well now.

About to stand, go searching for her—said she was going to hold mass over Chiana, but they both knew that was a lie as soon as the words spilled out of her mouth. Figured she was in shock, that maybe the gun show today dredged up some sort of bad memory as Qetesh, or hell, even as her. He's willing to bet she's seen her fair share of bloodshed in battle and covers it with shiny hair things and a bouncy step.

About to go, but the doors hiss open and she hobbles in, her left leg a little stiff, her face devoid of her flashy grin, or her coquettish winks—maybe the shootout today scared her more than she's willing to talk about. Wants to ask her to sit down and talk, but he knows that she'll blow him off, wants to tell her to just lay down, she doesn't have to do or say anything, just settle until she realizes that she's safe.

Wants to tell her that he would never let anything happen to her because she's a member of his team.

It means something, but it doesn't mean everything, and in this case it means nothing because being on SG-1 has absolutely nothing to do with it.

But she ignores him completely, grunting as she marches, heavy-booted towards the sleeping baby.

"Vala, he's still asleep. You shouldn't—"

She whisks him out of the bassinet in a swoop of her arms, her balance off kilter a bit, and as Deke wakes up and starts with the waterworks, she speaks to him not in whispers, but hushed tones. In a language he hasn't heard before, that the gunk hey got shot up with when they got here straightens out and spits into English for him, so he no longer hears the throaty gulps and gasps.

"Vala?"

Deke's tears begin to dry as she brings him closer to her face, her smile wide—but not bright, more tired—she cradles him to her shoulder, caressing the back of his head, and placing a gentle kiss in his peach fuzz hair.

"Hey." He stands, groaning at the weight on his hip, but shifts and it eases up a little. "You want to tell me what—"

She half turns, apparently noticing him for the first time, and a grin—still not flashy—lights up her face. "John." A single laugh as she hugs the baby and hobbles over to him. "How did you frelling know?"

Before he can answer her, she slides a hand to his cheek, frozen fingers licking at his stubble, and pulls him down for a kiss.

This isn't Vala.

She doesn't smell the same.

Whoever this is, realizes it about the same time as him—when tongues come into play. The woman shoves him away and instinctively reaches to her side for what he's guessing is the weapon that Vala felt no need to arm herself with once they returned from Valdun.

"Who are you?"

"It's okay." Raises his hands in surrender, lets her know he doesn't mean harm to her or the baby. The baby. She takes a quick glance at Deke, and he knows, she's his mom. "Officer Sun?"

"It's Sun."

"How did you get back?"

"You will tell me who you are before I have Pilot vent you into space."

"I'm Colonel Cameron Mitchell. I'm—"

Her shoulders relax, her tight grip of Deke loosens a bit. "You're the one who switched with John."

"Yeah."

He rounds the bed uneasily, still wary of her because from what Moya's crew has told him, she could kill him eight ways from across the room right now. "How—where's Vala?"

"Vala?" Speaks the name awkwardly, like it doesn't belong in her mouth. "Forgive me, you all have such stupidly complicated names. Which one—"

His brows drop and his lips straighten into a serious expression as he completes his tour around the bed. "The one who switched with you."

"I've no idea. I didn't see her."

"Did she switch with you?"

"That would be an educated assumption."

He approaches, using cautious steps still, not wanting to impose, especially on a reunion between her and Deke. She grins down at the baby again and he fells compelled to tell her, "we've been taking good care of him. We both feed him and wake up when he cries—well usually."

"Then you have a step up on my husband." She shifts Deke's weight further to her left side and grunts in pain, her back hunching over.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"This is not mine."

"What?" He scurries closer, still worried that she might snap his neck in half, or maybe tear him apart, but he thinks maybe something happened to Deke, got switched with some random SGC baby or something. "What isn't yours?"

When he reaches out a hand to help her to sit, she doesn't take it, guides it away from her, but doesn't slap it from the air. Pulling off the idea that she might hurt a kid that doesn't belong to her—even out of frustration—or that she could drop him from doubling over in what he thinks is pain, he offers, "I can take him while you sit."

"Please do no offer the idea of removing my son from me, Colonel." It's said in the most removed tone he's ever heard, but the words are blunt as hell.

She shuffles to the bed, laying Deke, who gurgles, now on the brink of sleep again, in the fur blanket he and Vala shared once. She stands straight, her fingers moving curiously over her body, prodding down the side, and then over her hip to the center of her pelvis. Her eyes dart up from the examination. "This is not my body."

"Okay." Keeps a calm tone, still unsure. "What do you mean?"

"For starters this room is much too cold for me, when I know that the temperature is optimal minus two which should be perfect for my body." She flaps out of the long jacket, the red piling against the floor, and her hand moves back to her side with a hiss until she tugs the shirt up.

He would look away, but the action is so quick he doesn't have a chance to—instead he's gets a full view of the navel, the hips that have been guest starring in his dreams for the last few days, and the mass of blistering skin that's puckering and oozing at her side.

"Also," Officer Sun sighs, flinching as she runs a finger against the injury, "my body is not injured."

"What the hell happened?" Rushes to her side again, but she quickly curtains the t-shirt, perching on the edge of the bed with a hiss.

"You tell me, I'm going to guess you ran into Peacekeepers and they had acidic rounds."

"We had a shoot out." He starts tossing things around the room in search of the jar that the old woman gave him with the ointment. "I didn't know she got shot. Why didn't she tell me she got shot?"

Officer Sun grunts again, this time with a hand against her stomach. "Did she also not inform you of her other injury?"

Stops dead in his tracks, turning back to her, and he's sure for once he's as pale as she is. How did she get injured—did she fall off that damn walkway in Pilot's room? Did that old woman do something to her? He sets the jar back down in case the old lady isn't on the level. It's something they need to discuss. "What other injury?"

"She's bleeding."

"Bleeding where?"

"Internally, the organs in her pelvis are in distress."

"What?" Okay he doesn't understand again, but she's letting him get close to her, close enough to tell by her expression, that she's probably on the level. "How do you know?"

"Because I'm fairly certain there is blood expelling from within her—"

"What?"

"There is cramping here, right here—" she touches the area again and it's not exactly Vala's stomach. "And when I stand I can feel the—"

"Oh." Gets it at the last second, and almost throws a hand to his face because he's such an idiot. Sets down the rags he's gathered to stem the blood, although he's not sure, she might need them. When Officer Sun watches him, her hand balled and her knuckles pressing into her pelvis, he explains, "that's normal."

"How is this normal?"

"Well, not the gun shot." He stands before her, holding out the ointment for her to use, she uncaps the jar, smelling it, and nodding with approval, apparently having used this from the old woman before.

"You're telling me that human females just bleed from their—"

"It happens once a month." He turns away from her, as she lifts her shirt over Vala's body, and starts slathering on the salve.

"What frelling purpose could bleeding once a month possibly have?"

He shrugs, a little amused by the whole situation, but he sort of understands her freak out. "It's a fertility thing."

"So, she is incapable of having children?"

"No, it means she can—"

"Bleeding this much, even for one day—"

"It's usually for a week—"

"How is she not dead?"

"You know—" peeks over his shoulder and she's pulled the shirt back down, capping the salve again. "I've asked myself that at least once a day since I've met her."

Deke stirs, and whatever rebuttal Officer Sun has dies in place of her snuggling up to her son. She speaks again, a different language that the translators in his head scramble to give him the English of, little half whispers and words planted in kisses on Deke's face. When she pulls the baby back to her shoulder, she groans and adjusts her back. "This is really uncomfortable."

"This isn't something I worry about."

"You should."

He steps away from straightening the blankets in the bassinet and swallowing awkwardly when looking at the pile of discarded clothing still in a pile on the floor. "Is it that bad?"

"It's manageable, but as her partner—"

"Whoa, let me cut you off right here." Holds both his hands up again, and her eyes scroll away from Deke, to hold his gaze. Vala's big flirty eyes that hold nothing that he can recognize now. "We are not partners."

"Really?" Officer Sun stands, bouncing Deke in her arms, and walking around the room, taking note of the discarded clothing, the blankets slipping off their bed. "Because it seems like you've been bunking together."

He zips to the bed, starting to fold the blankets, cleaning up the place a little too late—maybe trying to get rid of the evidence. "We did it or safety, and to help each other with the baby."

She stops rocking Deke, and turns to him, her eyes heavy, and a twitch of a grin pulling on her lips. One Vala sometimes uses. "You're not partners, yet you're co-parenting my son."

"Well, if you put it that way, it sound incriminating."


	14. A Sprinkle of Time

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 14

A Sprinkle of Time

"How did it happen?"

She stands solemnly, her son flush against her chest, quiet as if such a little mind could comprehend the gravity of the location, of the situation, of a member of his family laid out on a bed before them. The gentle raise and fall of his chest grounding her as she stares at Chiana, unmoving, her neck bandage tinged with bits of her blue blood.

"I—honestly—I don't know."

Colonel Mitchell, stands behind her, leaning in Moya's ovular door. Parts of him are like Crichton, though he is not complete. There is joking, and compassion, and a near overdose of what her husband calls 'Southern hospitality' in being overly accommodating to each of her moves, answering each of her questions to the best of his knowledge, allowing her room to move, privacy with her son.

But she can sense a fellow soldier, a fellow pilot at that, and it's dangerous to know that however far removed he is, that his loyalty still rests with Stargate Command, whose job is simply to go forth in the galaxy and colonize.

Her fingers play through Chiana's hair, setting her part straight, wishing she could talk to the girl, to relax in all her questions about the other world, to find solace in a familiar face and sound, in not talking about the second division of a cell pulsating a galaxy away. Talk about how these people are treating those on Moya, how well they care for her son, put her fears to rest because this exchange is temporary—she can feel it, the tingling feeling circulating over her skin slowly diminishing, as is her time with loved ones.

"How do you not know?"

"I got shot, and—Vala tried to—it was a real mess. I had to frag one of the guns to get away." He speaks into the knuckles of his hand, his voice terse, heavy. "How's your side feel?"

"Like your shoulder does." Her friend is pale, gray skin pallid under the lights, the lamps that John lay under for over a weeken. "Who attacked you?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not—" She pivots on the spot, her free hand dropping from Chiana's unconscious body, to support her son. He fusses against the side of her neck, and she inhales deeply, tempering her voice.

Colonel Mitchell patiently waits, part of his Southern hospitality, and when her pause is no longer caused by an outburst he responds, "I'm not from your galaxy, I have no idea what the hell has been going on here, except the cliff notes Chiana sometimes feeds me."

Briefly turning back to Chiana, she whispers a Sebacean coda for good health, while holding her hand. Wishes she could stay, be present for her awakening, but she needs to examine the device, see if there's any difference, something that can allow them to piece together a way home.

"Can you describe them?"

The colonel trails her out the door, keeping a respectable distance, until she slows her stride to allow him to step into place beside her.

"Four of them. Looked human. In red leather, sort of like one of the vests in the clothing pile—"

"—the clothing pile?"

"It's a long story."

"Sebacean, Peacekeeper. Marauder most likely. Can you describe any of them individually?" When the colonel gives her a questioning glance, she clarifies, "I'm afraid Crichton is very good at collecting enemies."

"The leader had a real burnt up face. It looked like a side of Canadian bacon."

"I don't know what that is."

"It was really scarred, one of his eyes might have been gone." He points to her son, whose mouth stretches slanted across his face as he hiccups once. "Deke had more hair than him."

They cross through another hallway, traveling from the medical unit up to command and she wishes anyone of use was conscious. Noranti apparently went to rest after healing Chiana, and the colonel hasn't mentioned anything of Stark.

"Does it help at all?"

"Well, we know that Grayza has either revoked her portion of the peace treaty, or there's a rebel marauder unit who has a vendetta against us." She steps over a DRD as it zips by her path, not really thinking, just feeling the static scaling over her skin lessen.

"Either one of those likely?"

When they stop at command, as she juggles Deke, the colonel leans over swiping his hand over the switch to open the door. Then just as quickly, returns his hands to clasp behind his back, allowing her through first.

"Both of those are likely." It's said absently to him as in the jolt of the transfer, in the pain eating away at her side, the shock of viewing Chiana, and the ecstasy in holding her son, she forgot about her best confidant. "Pilot?"

"Yes, Ms. Mal Doran?"

"No, Pilot, it's Aeryn."

There's a brief pause before Pilot materializes on the clamshell communicator to their left. His eyes narrowing, judging, trying to discern her words. "I'm sorry, but my physical scan still reads a non-Earth originating human."

"We've switched." Steps delicately closer to the communicator, reaching a hand out to touch the hologram, watching it fizzle at her fingertips and straighten in her wake. "Please believe me, Pilot, as I don't have much time here left."

From her periphery, she notices the colonel's eyes grow wide with her emission, but he allows her the grace of having her conversation with Pilot. "The men who attacked us—who attacked Chiana and our counterparts on Valdun, they were Peacekeeper, most likely marauders."

Pilot nods in understanding, one of his hands coming up in the hologram, and she wonders if he's doing the same. "I will do periodic scans of the space around us, Officer Sun. If there is a marauder ship approaching us, Moya and I will be aware of their presence before they are of ours."

"Please, Pilot." She exhales, refusing to shed her tears on her lightly slumbering son. "Protect our family while we're gone."

"You have my word, Officer Sun, that I will do my very best."

"Thank you." She nods and watches the hologram disintegrate from the clamshell.

They're defenseless. An unconscious Nebari, an old woman, a man who apparently still has not left his quarters, a ship not equipped with offensive measures, an immovable Pilot, and a baby. "Tell me." She turns her attention back to the colonel, snuffing her emotions and instead focusing on how she can help. "Are you good at combat?"

"I'm an ex-air force pilot, near perfect marksmanship skills, and Teal'c been training me in hand-to-hand for the last two years."

With another inhalation, the emotions have almost subsided. She feels them more often now, in swarms and hoards, just an overabundance of sadness, longing, fear—emotions she's been trained since birth to ignore.

"And her?" She nods down at her borrowed body, pausing to caress the side of her son's face.

"Well, I've never sparred with her, but she can kick some butt if she wants to. Has great aim. Has flown almost every alien ship. She's a fast thinker—she's gotten us out of some major jams before." A grin grows on his face, similar to the one Deke gave her earlier, almost wistful in nature. "She's got a horseshoe up her ass."

"Even with the microbes, I doubt that—"

"She's really lucky—just—" he produces the same grin again "—naturally lucky."

There another rush of emotion, because she recognizes the grin now—not wistful, but calming, what John calls 'puppy-dog eyes' which the microbes translated to innate adoration. Despite holding her son, she misses her husband, and she doesn't comprehend why it's so frelling hard to just have both. She clears her throat, turning back to the device, standing solitary on the precarious table, the one that hasn't stood strong since Chiana pierced the Qualta blade through the top.

"You've got a stone."

"Yeah. Vala, must've stolen it during the shootout." He steps closer, moving to the opposite side of the table from her. In a very gentle voice, a voice that isn't fair because he looks and sounds like Crichton, who should be here—he should be here—the colonel asks, "what did you mean when you said you didn't have long?"

"I can feel the energy used to switch my being into this body waning."

Deke stirs in her arms, his small face growing sour, his skin turning red as the first cry bursts from his mouth followed by the continual stream she's accustomed to. She doesn't know how these humans managed to satiate him so well, to calm him into what seems to be a trusting nature.

She tries to soothe him, bring him to her shoulder and rock or bounce while whispering comforting words in Sebacean, but his wails only increase in volume, his tiny hands balled into fists.

She doesn't know what her son wants, and for a brief moment, the fear creeps in, that perhaps he misses the other woman.

"Here." Colonel Mitchell sets a Peacekeeper infant food pouch down on the table, before jamming in the nursing apparatus. Bits of the green goop leak from the side, but he hands the pouch to her. "He's probably hungry."

"How—" Confused, angered, ashamed, she accepts the pouch and slips the puckered end into Deke's mouth, stunned briefly into silence as her son immediately accepts his meal. The wails cease and there's only the sound of him greedily suckling. One of his hands raises, his fingers skimming her own. "Why didn't I know?"

"Hey, you're all turned around from shooting galaxy to galaxy." The colonel approaches her now, moving slowly, but closer. "You're in a body that's not your own, dealing with injuries and functions that aren't your own. Hell, you were probably so relieved to see the kid that you didn't realize what time it was."

It's placation at it's very basis, but somehow coming from a man who resembles her husband, but is not her husband, in this situation, at this time, she finds solace in his words. In his kindness as he smiles at her.

"While we're sorting out this situation, I promise, we'll take care of the little guy." He stands beside her now, not towards her, but staring at the device along with her, the single stone glowing a light blue. "That means protecting him from burnt faced men too."

She swallows, the energy streaking over her skin is almost depleted and she knows she has less then microts remaining. "Thank you, Colonel Mitchell."

"My pleasure." He scratches at the back of his head, his eyes still not meeting hers as the blue of the stone drops in brightness. "Hey, I know we got to sort this whole stone thing out, but is everyone back home okay?"

"Everyone seems normal." Deke's mouth slowly loses suction and strength, the Peacekeeper formula beginning to leak from the side of his mouth as his eyes drift closed. She takes her thumb, pulling the hem of her shirt around it, and wipes at the corner of her son's mouth. He is at peace, and content. "The doctor, the bespectacled one, stares at me which John doesn't appreciate."

The colonel chuckles, his grin meeting his eyes. "He probably still thinks you're Vala trying to pull a fast one over on him."

Doesn't comprehend his answer, because the energy has ebbed from her body, almost depleted. Lifting her napping son to her shoulder, she places a gentle kiss on the side of his face and runs her fingers over the soft hair on his head. His lips bumble, and she knows it's time.

"Would you mind holding him for a second?"

Voluntarily releasing her son into the care of someone else, into the care of a practical stranger, burns her heart. She gave up everything to guarantee the safety of a child she was hesitant to admit existed for over a year, whom she went through hell to keep alive, and now all of her sacrifice has resulted in her depending on the competence of two unfamiliar humans.

She will be back in that frelling mountain where the temperature makes her nauseous upon waking, and be tethered to that room, where she needs to take frequent ice baths in order not to succumb to heat delirium. She must rely on her husband, whom they keep dispatching, to let her know when the temperature has become too much for her and relieve her with bags of ice or direct her to the shower. She is no longer the strong solider she was bred to be, her military knowledge is no longer sought after, instead she is domesticated, and it infuriates her.

Would infuriate her greater, if the resolution wasn't returning here permanently and falling asleep with her beautiful child tucked at her breast.

She touches his cheek one last time, skin so incredibly soft, skin she created within her, a feat she never thought she would experience, and she knows she will see her son again. That it doesn't matter if he doesn't miss her because she will miss him enough for two beings.

"I love you."

She falls unconscious, transferring back after the last word, her timing, for once, is perfect.

* * *

"Why do you people always insist on videotaping me?"

She stares into the dead eye of the lens of a rather large recording device, her hands pasting with sweat against the metallic tabletop, the set up is very reminiscent of when she commandeered Daniel's body to warn them about the Ori. Each time she was working with limited accessibility, and each time they insisted on taking half an hour to set up lights and a camera.

"You wouldn't even let me go freshen up before you did. You wouldn't even let me go get food."

This transfer has been the most difficult of all four. She's in Officer Sun's body, which while resembling her own, doesn't feel the same. There's a tightness in the muscles in her arms and legs, a stiffness in her lower back that's familiar from overworking the farming fields when she was younger. She has a horrible hunger, one so ravenous, she's almost lightheaded, and a thin layer of sweat has been on the back of her neck since she got dressed which the lights only work to intensify.

There is also an omnipresent heat. A heat which is definitely palpable.

Perhaps most noticeable over all her discomforts is the pinch of something in her pelvis. Not exactly the cramping she was experiencing, more like something tight, and stuck in place. Something she can't shake loose.

"Vala, stop fidgeting." Daniel chides, resetting the camera, aiming the lens directly at her and she swallows harshly.

"I'm really hungry," but even as she says it, her stomach does flip flops, souring her expression.

"Okay, hold the phone." Crichton steps in front of the camera, the monitors at the side only broadcasting the black from his t-shirt. He's stacking his hands together to look like a 'T'. "You can videotape her testimonial after she's eaten."

"It's—"

"No," his voice is stern, but tapers off as he adds, "it's not."

Daniel throws his hand over his face, an idiosyncrasy he usually saves for her, when her irking becomes too much to handle, and sends her from the room to 'bug' someone else. "It's answering a few simple questions, Crichton."

"That's Aeryn's body, and your teammate, who I'm willing to guess has never inhabited a Sebacean before." He points back at her, while continuing to argue with Daniel. "She hungry, she's going to get heat—"

Daniel rips his hand away from his face, it going as red as the splotches on her bare legs, itchy patches of skin hot to the touch. "It's less than ten questions."

She holds her head in her hand, the room growing very tight, stocked with each individual's breathes, their body heat, their perspiration, the heat curls at the bottom of the wall, inching upwards, growing towards her.

"Just ask your stupid questions already." Huffs it, surprised at the own exhaustion in her voice as her face angles towards the metallic table, her breath leaving the same wisps of heat against the surface.

"She's done this before." Daniel shrugs his shoulders with a smirk as he shakes off his BDU jacket, tossing it to one of the vacant chairs. "She just wants ice cream."

"How do you know?" Slants her head and blinks downwards, ignoring the heat crawling up the wall. Ignoring how it makes her think of sitting on the bench, the feeling as the lit oil swerved closer and closer. "I was you last time."

"I watched the tapes." Daniel slants to the side of Crichton's body to shout at her directly. "Partly out of curiosity, partly to make sure you didn't do anything to my body."

"Okay enough." Crichton spreads his arms out between them, as if he were going to physically hold them apart, as if she wasn't feebly trying to stay upright while sweat swivels down her back and the backs of her bare thighs stick to the chair. "I don't know what the hell is going on between the two of you, but you could've already gotten through your damn interview."

There's a brief pause, during which only the sound of her scratching at Officer Sun's leg is heard. When she leans forward with the motion, the pinch is more pronounced, not painful, just distracting, constant, an odd bit of pressure that redirects her attention every few seconds.

"Vala?"

"What?"

"Is that agreeable or not?" Daniel's crossed his arms, an expression of disappointment on his face, his lips in a tight smirk again.

"Is what agreeable?"

He huffs, shifting on his feet and approaching her a bit, behind him, Crichton's eyes don't leave her. "Crichton's going to go get you some food and an ice pack."

"Why?"

"You said you were hungry."

"Did I?"

"Okay. We can do this later." Mitchell approaches her, his face stern, the one he wears when she follows him lost down the hallways out of boredom. She shrinks beside him when he reaches for her, but his hand lands softly against her forehead, and his eyes burn as much as her entire body. "You've got the first stage of heat delirium."

His hand slips under hers soldered to the table, and he helps her stand precariously. She doesn't remember him being this gentle—she does, but not in this environment, somewhere cooler, darker.

Somewhere where he snores into the back of her head each night.

Can't connect the pictures, the ideas, the memories, but can grasp the feeling of safety, of comfort, and she keeps hold of his hand as he tries to lead her from the area.

"Crichton," Daniel begins, "we have a specific set of—"

"Let me help you get this straight." He stops rather quickly, almost causing her to trip up her steps. "This is Aeryn's body. You know it's sensitive to heat and right now, your girl Vala is driving it and doesn't know the controls."

Daniel says nothing but drops his crossed arms.

There's sweat between each of her fingers and toes.

"Aeryn is all I have while we're stuck here, and if anything happens to her you won't be able to make it to that gate fast enough." His hand slips slick against hers and she wobbles a bit on her feet.

"Why do I remember a baby?" Her voice breaks on the word because she remembers more than one, and the pinch pulls her back to Mitchell, who has his hand on the zipper to her sweater.

"You gotta take this off, you'll feel better."

She nods, unzipping the fleece lined sweater and dropping it, sweat soaked, to the floor. There is a blast of relief, but it wanes quickly. The pressure distracts her again, and she's able to collect Mitchell's words.

"—I thought she was your teammate."

"She is."

"Then why do you treat her like she's not?"

* * *

He helps her sit on one of the boxes of what she assumes is a refrigeration unit, and takes a seat across from her, his arms huddling to his chest and frequent exhalations puffing from his mouth.

"How do you feel?"

"This is delightful." Reclines against the boxes, the swirls of heat threatening her on the borders of the room destroyed, and instead, she feels the healthy flow of cool air circulate around her.

"You know who I am?"

Glances at him with a cocked eyebrow. If this is a game, it isn't a very clever one. "You're Crichton."

"Good." He sighs and the largest puff of air swells around his face.

"Why?"

"The first stage of heat delirium is short-term memory loss." He shifts on the box, crunching down the edge with his behind and a pained look on his face, forcing him to stand. He dusts off his hands on his pants, before offering her one. "I think you thought I was Mitchell."

Accepts his hand, gracious for his help, for knowing what he did because the illness that overtook her was swift and debilitating like a fire scorching through her veins. "I think I did too."

He gives her a pitying smile and is kind enough not to ask about her and Mitchell, or her and Daniel. Instead, pounding a fist into the thick metal door, and tossing her the white package of generic peas he pulled out from under the collapsed box. "You might wanna take that. We gotta go through the kitchen."

"I don't remember going through the kitchen."

"I know you don't."

The door opens and the blast of heat hits her like a metal bat in the chest. He keeps his hand grasped around her, swerving through various workers and cooks, until almost at the end of the preparation area.

"Wait." She stiffens her foot, covered in a sneaker she doesn't remember putting on, into the tiles.

"What." He stops, turns immediately, waiting for her to dictate a problem.

She points at a food on the counter, a shallow metallic bin just full of breaded meat. "Chicken nuggets."

"Chicken nuggets?" He repeats the words like he doesn't understand them.

Jabs her finger out again at the mound of them, her mouth watering despite all the turmoil this body has recently been through.

"Hey chicken nuggets."

He grabs a massive handful, dumping them, overflowing into her cupped palms after she maneuvers the frozen peas under her arm. He snatches another handful, shoving three or four into his mouth before the wails of upset staff chase them from the kitchen.

They reach a hallway which runs behind the commissary, slamming the door shut behind them, both laughing and spewing masticated chicken from their mouths. That is, until the pinch causes her back to straighten suddenly.

His chuckles die in his throat. "You okay?"

"Yes, it's nothing."

"Sounds like something."

"Well, your wife has a very distinct pinch."

His stern brows furrow with confusion, his arms crossed, but his attention completely on her. "A pinch?"

"Yes, it's this little troublesome bit of pressure—"

"Does it hurt?"

"No, it's more of a constant distraction."

"Where is it."

"Her pelvis."

There's a pause where a concerned expression ghosts over his face very briefly, and if she hadn't been chained to Mitchell's side for the better part of a week, she may have missed it entirely. Then he shakes his head. "It's probably just the scar. When she got stabbed they hit a vital—"

"It's in the middle. Closer to—"

And the pinch absolves itself as unconsciousness consumes her.


	15. Revolving Door

Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 15

Revolving Door

Maneuvering his arms underneath her, he balances her back against his chest. Ran up an entire flight of stairs and didn't even feel it in the balmy temperature. Slid across the bathroom floor, twisting his knee a little to the left, because when she popped out of the tub screaming three hours earlier, neither of them bothered to clean up the water and melting ice from the floor—Aeryn usually did that.

He can't even feel his knee—knows he will later, after all this isn't the days of the challenger anymore, and the adventures in space have only worked against his aging body—but for right now, he's trying to keep her face out of the direct stream of water—not lukewarm—pure freezing water, that barely tingles as it showers down on them.

Holds her limp form like a puppet and just wills the water to cool her down, to wake her up. Doesn't know what the hell happened—she just dropped that bag of frozen peas and the chicken nugget she was half done eating and ragdolled in the hallway. Luckily, the space adventures have honed his keen reflexes and he managed to snatch the woman wearing his wife before she smashed Aeryn's beautiful face off the ground.

Man, does he ever want this to be over.

It seems like it's lasting longer than their usual space adventures, the usual foibles they accidentally get wrapped up in because every single thing in the galaxy—and other galaxies now—wants to frell with them. Wants to drag him, and his beautiful, unconscious wife, and his screaming, wailing, possibly colicky, possibly heat deliriumed son, and the whole rowdy crew on Moya into their dren, and he's done with it.

He's so done with it.

"Come on."

Speaks with his chin on the top of her head, long black hair running slick under the water, dripping icicle drops down his shirt and arms.

Her head falls slack against his throat, then rolls to his shoulder, and he moves to straighten her again, tilts her head up with a thumb under each side of her chin, so he doesn't accidentally drown her—ignoring the fact that he can't really feel a pulse.

"Come on."

It is so still as he waits.

He stands, a grown man in a shower, in a bathroom, in a mountain, storeys underground.

A bump on a log.

He holds everything in his hands.

It's so silent. The soft sound of falling water, echoing through the bathroom because he never shut the door to the shower, and it reminds him of Australia, of a storm lapping at their window and his tongue lapping at her neck.

She was so perfect then, so absolutely perfect that he couldn't bring himself to place doubt in the situation. She was there, and he was there, and then he was inside her, and she was shuddering—a blush flushing over white skin glowing against overcast skies from outside—and then they had a son. A perfect son, that as far as he's concerned, was conceived during her first thunderstorm, and he was the first person to hold him. He caught the kid and cut the cord during the middle of the blitzkrieg.

"Come on!"

And maybe she's finally listening to him, because her lifeless body tenses, she sucks in an awful big breath that bursts her forward, her eyes opening up under a stream of shower water, and the sight of their leaky shampoo bottles welcomes her back.

He wraps an arm around her chest, pinning her shoulders to him, and one around her forehead, just so she doesn't lurch forward too much and smash that beautiful face off the dial, and he laughs into her ice cold hair—not knowing which woman it is—just happy that there's some form of life in her body.

"Oh, God you scared me."

She takes four breaths in quick succession, her back pressing against his chest, his soaked t-shirt licking at the soaked tank top she's in and he should really be letting go, but that was too much. He's all for living dangerously, and playing on the edge, but that was too damn much,

Her head tilts one way, then another against the restriction of his arm, and her body tenses for a different reason—not shock anymore—but fear because he's got her held down.

"Sorry." He releases her, finally feeling the full effect of the coldest water a mountain can offer, goosebumps widespread over his body. "You just—who are you?"

She turns to him, and he knows it even before she says it. It's something about her eyes, something about the way they soften when they see him because maybe she's remembering that room in Sydney where she drank her first beer.

"It's me, John."

"It's you," he agrees, snatching her up—this time, facing him—his cold cheek piling against the top of her still drenched hair—she smells like her again. "It's you."

Her fingertips run up the back of his neck and into his hair, scratch like she's holding on to him, like he's anchoring her there and if she lets go she'll poof back to Moya, so he holds her tighter because under the right circumstances, three hours is a frelling lifetime.

"It's you," says it one more time as confirmation—not for her—but for himself, so he can let go of the veritable nightmare of someone not Sebacean driving his Sebacean wife's heat delirium prone body through what feels like the Florida keys during rainy season.

Drops a kiss to her neck, and the taste is cold—of course it is—but a comfort, familiar, the same as that first experimental peck beside her on the bed. Her hand sways up to hold the side of his head as her frozen lips press a kiss into his temple, and if he could describe perfection—after describing her and Deke—he'd talk about this, and the feeling of ultimate relief.

"Why am I in the shower?" She pulls her head back with a disgusted expression on her face, her finger traveling to her mouth to pick out bits of nugget still stuck to her gums. "Why do I have breaded poultry in my mouth?"

Forgot that she hates chicken.

"The girl in your body fell slack while eating a chicken nugget." He reaches across her, the water droplets dancing across his skin in the light and turns the shower off. The pipe groans in resistance but then there's only drip of the random drops of water from their bodies. "I thought it was a heat delirium thing."

"No, our time possessing each other merely expired," she shudders—the droplets starting to slow now—and wraps her arms around her body, like she did when she came back, the first time he actually lost her, the time he killed—"Did she not feel?—"

Bows his forehead against hers—despite the temperature, the confusion, the taste of subpar reheated frozen chicken nugget in her mouth—she embraces the stance, closing her eyes along with him, breathing in the same air he does, feeling the same comfort he does, nuzzling a little into him.

"I love you," murmurs it against her skin and feels at home a galaxy away.

"I love you too."

Snaps out of 'what-if' mode, because although it sure as hell may sell comic books, it only gives him another reason to lose sleep. Cups a hand over her cheek, watching her eyelashes clump together with water as she blinks up at him. "Let's get you dry."

Still staring at her, he moves to push the shower door open, only he forgot he never closed it—due to thinking he somehow killed her again—and he stumbles backwards, slipping on the floor again, trying to catch himself with a knocked knee—that he definitely feels now—and falls flat on his ass in the bathroom floor marshland.

Figures she's going to ask what the frell happened to the bathroom in the three hours that she was gone, but instead she grins down at him, stepping gracefully from inside the shower, her arms wrapped around her, until she offers him one to help him stand.

As he takes it she smiles, "I saw Deke."

"Is he—"

"He's perfectly fine. Content. Our counterparts are caring for him well."

"I miss him."

"He misses you."

He grins, accepting her words, knowing an almost five-week-old baby can't really miss him, especially when he wasn't there for the first week—or this last week. All he can hope is that in the long run of things, his kid doesn't remember all the sick days he took.

"Colonel Mitchell, your counterpart, is a gentleman."

"Vala, yours, is feisty."

He grabs the last towel from inside the cupboard, and takes careful steps, back to her, wrapping it around her shoulders, pulling her hair out from beneath it with a slap. His hand wring through it, squeezing out the extra water.

"Our son is in good hands, until we return."

He nods, his lips pressing and staying against her forehead as he embraces her again, before remembering, "hey, the last thing Vala said before her ass got booted from your body was something about a pinch in your pelvis."

"What?" She stiffens ducking her head back to observe him.

"Yeah, she said it didn't hurt, more like it felt like a distraction?" His fingers lightly touch the sliver of skin escaping from between her top and her shorts—across from the scar, like she said. "You okay?"

"Yes." She steps away from him now, which makes him think she's lying. Which makes him think the opposite is true, and it's like he told the good old doc, she is his only investment here, and if she doesn't make it back with him— "I'm sure it's just a reaction to eating the processed poultry."

"Well, I think this was happening before she—"

"Remember when we went to your Earth, how ill I was after eating Wackdonalds?" She pulls the towel tighter around her, leaning back into the counter, still shivering under the layer of cotton.

He chuckles, shaking his head, the image of Aeryn thrown over the porcelain throne making the most carnal sounds he's ever head coming into his head. The guys at IASA thought that she was having a reaction to the atmosphere or something and it turns out that some teenager just didn't cook the nuggets all the way. "That's not the name, but yeah, you threw up for a whole day."

"The twinge she felt was a reaction from masticating so many nougats in such a short time."

"Nuggets, and if that's the case, then why aren't—"

"What's that?"

"Nugget is the word, not—"

"No, John." She bolts from the counter, padding across the ice rink of a floor that's claimed him twice, back to the shower, not slipping up her footing even once. "Look."

Think it's the old diversion tactic—maybe there is something wrong with her, doesn't know about the prolonged exposure of Sebaceans to heat other than how she looked when he broke her out of Katratzi, doesn't know if it can start fooling with her internal organs, cause a gallbladder stone or something—but then he looks and sees what she sees.

There's something in the bottom of the shower.

He squints as he approaches, trying to make it out, thinking it's a piece of clothing, maybe a sock or something. "What is that?"

She holds it up for him to see. A pouch as big as her hand, once full, now empty, the familiar disgusting green slime leaking from the top of it.

She hands it to him, a grin on her face. "It's the Peacekeeper infant formula I was feeding to Deke."

* * *

She doesn't wake back up right away, which is not what he expected, and it sort of gets to him.

Could deal with the fainting because he was a little forewarned by Officer Sun's words—her actions—finally listened to her, laid Deke back on table where they found him—and caught her just before the back of her head bounced off the ground.

Thought she would wake back up as Vala, just snap back to it like going through a revolving door—only she didn't. He stood there holding her lifeless body for a good solid two minutes, before he realized something might be wrong and he screamed for Pilot, panicking, not thinking straight.

The baby started to cry.

Finally, the old woman woke up from her eight-hour nap, and shuffled into command, took one look at unconscious Vala, and scoffed that she would be fine, that she was just lost in between worlds.

He argued that sounded pretty fucking not fine.

But Noranti didn't hear him, or didn't answer, just took the baby and told him they would be with Chiana, to go there when Vala woke back up.

So he lugged her back to their room—lugged is the wrong word, despite how she packs her food back, she still weighs next to nothing—and laid her out on the bed and sat in a nearby chair. Didn't want to plan scenarios, but that's what he does, he's a leader, he has a contingency plan, and a contingency plan for his contingency plan.

Just sat with his fingers steepled, pleading that he didn't have to continue on—or worse—go home alone.

When she wakes, it doesn't happen immediately. Not the snap back he thought would happen from seeing her leave Jackson and seeing her return from the Ori galaxy. Her fingers twitch and her eyes move just slightly under still closed lids. She groans somewhere in the back of her throat and it's hoarse, but her head falls to the side, her hand coming to rest on her forehead.

Then she yelps and that quickness he was searching for kicks in. She flips to her side, the healthy one—he completely forgot about her injury. When he carried her, she wasn't conscious and couldn't shout in pain, but his fingers definitely dug into acid blistered skin.

Her body tenses, her hand flapping in the air from pain, her eyes wrenched shut a she grunts, "Cameron?"

It might be because her voice sounds so weak, so she's in obvious pain, but he thinks it's the first time in a long time she's called him Cameron instead of Mitchell, or some other nickname.

His shoots out his hand, snatching hers up. "I'm here."

She grunts again, her face growing sweaty and red. "This _really_ hurts."

"Here. Here." He's panicking again because she's back and hurt and he can't think straight, he always takes action, he always tries to stay calm, but he can't because—he grabs the ointment—what's left of it, and he hopes the old woman doesn't charge by the ounce. "Put this on—"

"I can't."

"Yes, you can." He pets the back of her hand, trying to talk calmingly even though his heart is about to burst through his ears. "Just slather it—"

"I can't move my arm."

For the first time he notices her left arm seized against her chest. Bent in and held firm while the hand he just let go of flails around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

"Cameron, it hurts so badly I can barely see."

"Okay, okay, I'm going to have to—"

"If you have to shoot me, I don't care, but do something already."

Just remembers how he was with Sam when she took an Ori staff blast to the gut. He stitched up Sam no problem, he took care of Sam and he's proud of that.

He can do it again.

Sets the ointment container on his bad thigh—which is jostling everywhere—uncapping it and reaches his free hand, the hand not ensnared in hers again, forward to tug up the side of her shirt. The skin underneath has decomposed more in the last three hours and he can see the specific spots where his fingers burned into her.

Keeps tugging the shirt up until he sees the bottom of her bra, and the blisters run underneath the material, trailing fully up her side now. Pulls at the collar of her shirt, slipping it around her shoulder where the injury continues halfway towards her elbow. The skin is bubbled and irritated bright red, liquid seeping out from the wounds, running to untainted skin and infecting it.

"Shit."

"Cameron!"

"Okay, do exactly what I say."

She nods as he leans over her body, directing the back of her t-shirt over her head, but leaving it pillowed at her chest. Releasing her grip, which definitely cracked a few of his knuckles, he guides her good arm to hug across her chest, keeping her top in place. He swallows hard, reaching back, trying not to skim her skin as he pops the clasp on her bra, letting it sink against her waiting arm.

It might be a few seconds wasted, but it's something that he needs to do. Not for him, not to keep the balance between them, but because she deserves that modesty. They may be here for a lot longer than they intended and this can't be something she thinks he's going to lord over her. This can't be something that changes the dynamics between them.

Scooping up the salve, he rubs it against her side, down the curves of her body until the dip of her hip, which yes, does look exactly like what he dreams it does—without the blisters that is. Rubs in the peppermint smelling lotion until her rapid breathing begins to calm, slides it over the still clean skin on her naval because it might be infected. Uncoils her injured arm from her body, and circles his thumbs massaging the ointment in.

Slowly, just as she woke, she settles, her chest no longer accordioning with each painful breath, her body no longer shaking from the pain, her arm no longer seizing to her chest.

His hands grow numb, the ointment absorbing into his skin too, and in an afterthought, he takes his still moist hands and rubs them over the still biting wound on his own shoulder.

After minutes of her light breathing through her mouth, and before he thinks to leave her to sleep off the pain, he asks, "how you doing?"

With a deep inhalation, her brows soften, "better."

"Good."

"Cold," she adds with a shiver that is too well timed not to be theatrical—he doesn't care, he sort of missed it over the stoic gruffness of Officer Sun. Vala was only gone for a few hours, but he really did miss her, and that—that makes him think.

The shiver trembles her arm, her good arm, and before anything else happens, he reaches behind her for what's become her favorite fur blanket. Only he might stretch over a bit too low, and it seems stupid, but over the lingering peppermint, she smells like her again. Like autumn leaves and a bit like cinnamon.

Tries not to notice how his closeness affects her. But it does. Sees the goosebumps spread over the pale, smooth skin on her neck.

He lets the blanket fall over her gently, careful not to aggravate any of the rash. Her eyes are closed, and though he wants to, he decides against tucking the blanket in. About to leave—to go get the old woman because maybe she has to do some evaluation, maybe this sort of thing happens all the time in this part of this galaxy—when she questions, her voice sounding a little far away, but not 'other galaxy' far away.

"Does this stuff heal the injury, or just numb it?"

"You know—" he yanks at his own shirt collar trying to get a good picture of his own blistered up shoulder. It doesn't look any worse for the wear, but it doesn't look like it's healing either, granted they were shot with some form of acid, so maybe the healing's always going to be slow, maybe they're always going to have scars. "I didn't think to ask. The old woman just gave me a potion that took away the pain and I jumped at the thought."

"It's completely understandable," she agrees, her voice more of a mumble, and something makes him stay, makes him keep the excuse to leave he's concocted up in his throat.

He relaxes into the chair, crossing his nonstop bouncing legs because he's waiting for something to happen, for the other shoe to drop. The solution to the old switcharoo, the cure for her debilitating wound, all came a little too easy.

"A lot has happened in a few hours, I figured, I'd just accept the win."

She adjusts, her good arm sliding from beneath the blanket, cushioning underneath her head as she nuzzles into the pillow. "Sometimes things just happen for a reason."

He smiles. He knows she doesn't see it. But he still does it.

"Did you get to meet Officer Sun?" Her brows raise as she asks the question, but her eyes don't open, He figures she has another five minutes of chat in her before she falls asleep.

"I did."

"Was she as terrifying as all accounts have provided her to be?"

"Sort of," he yawns, balling a fist over his mouth and shimmying into the chair to get comfortable. "She was more just happy to see her kid."

That makes her smile, and maybe she thinks that he won't see it, because it's the same smile she gave to Deke once. "Did she seem like a good mother?"

"She didn't put the kid down until she knew she was getting sucked back to the SGC."

"She knew?"

"You didn't?"

"No." She nods her head lightly, her lips pursing together with a long pause before she continues, like she forgot what they were talking about. Oh yeah, the sleep is coming. "One moment I was eating chicken nuggets in the hallway behind the commissary with Crichton, and the next moment I'm roiling in pain in front of you."

"That's quite the change of pace."

"That's nothing. Officer Sun has a weakness to the heat—"

"Weakness?"

"Yes, like heatstroke but a hundred times more powerful. I've never felt that physically ill in all my life."

"At least you were only there for three hours."

"Crichton had to drag me to a walk-in refrigerator in order to reconstitute me. Not to mention I awoke in an ice bath."

"Ice bath?"

"The less said the better."

"Oh, I think it's going to have to be one of those bedtime stories you promised to tell me." He reaches forward, snagging another blanket off the ground and tossing it over himself, because the room is cold, and if what Vala said about Officer Sun is true, it makes perfect sense.

"I'll add it to the list."

They're quiet for a bit. He thinks she's asleep and he keeps trying to fall asleep, shifting on his side, following her queue and using his hands for a pillow. But he feels guilty because he wasn't there, because some guy who looks like him had to help her instead. They've been here less than a week, but it feels like this is their thing, like they're in this alone but together and he wonders if she and Jackson felt this way when they came back the first time.

After all, being burned alive together has to cement some for of relationship.

But he's seen the way they act together. She tries to play with Jackson, and he shoots her down, how she has ideas that might actually make sense, and he ignores her—and he played off that for so long too.

Sure she's Vala—flighty, flirty Vala who took care of herself first unless someone needed to be sacrificed—but now she's different. He's seen her care for him, for Deke, for Chiana. He's seen her sit with Pilot and fall asleep at the foot of his console while talking with him. He's watched her take the baby to view the stars, pointing and whispering things while his little face lights up.

She's different now.

Maybe she was always this way.

Maybe he's different now.

Different because the mood Jackson had when they came back from the Ori galaxy, was that he could have accomplished more if he was alone. That she was the hindrance who got herself set on fire because she couldn't follow a few simple social cues—but he was there in that room, he barely knew her and he watched her flatline, and it changed him then too, made him a little more susceptible to saying yes to her, like when she wanted to go to Auburn.

He's different because he wouldn't pick anyone else to be stuck with here. Not Sam, or Teal'c, or Jackson. Not even Amy, who he's going to have to reschedule his date with for the fourth time. He's glad that if he has to be here, that he's here with her.

"Vala?"

"Yes, Darling?"

He reaches forward, taking the blanket that's tumbled from her bare shoulder, skin still as red as ever, blisters still bubbled, and tugs it back up, tucking it in like he wanted to.

"I'm glad you came back."

"Me too."


End file.
